"music interlude..."

Well in case you don’t recognize the music and believe me a lot of folks don’t, it is from Rent, which has been running at the Nederlander Theater on West 41^st street since 1996.

In 1996 it received 10 Tony nominations and won 4 including best musical and also won the Pulitzer Prize.

At the time it starred not only Idina Menzel and Daphne Rubin-Vega, who’s names you recognize today, but two fellows named Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp who overwhelmed audiences as the two main characters in the story about a bunch of friends, trying to exist in lower Manhattan while fighting to keep their building from being torn down.

Well Mr. Rapp and Mr. Pascal have returned to the show and have agreed to stay until Sunday October 7^th. If you’ve never seen Rent or never seen it with the original cast, you really should make an effort to beg, borrow, or steal a ticket.

I quite frankly had forgotten the story and a lot of the music, which included such well-known numbers as "Seasons of Love", "La Vie Boheme", "Light my Candle" and "Tango".

I think everyone has forgotten about the show, which is now the 7^th longest running show in Broadway history and its author Jonathan Larson who died 3 months before it opened on Broadway.

Incidentally, for you theater buffs, the show did originate off-Broadway at the NY Theater Workshop. Rent is a major must see for everyone except maybe your grandmother but hey I’m a grandfather and I loved it.

George Hamilton is coming back to Broadway as Billy Flynn in the continuing saga of how many stars can they fit into Chicago before it closes at the Ambassador Theater.

"Spring Awakening"; the pubescent show about turn of the century kids getting their rocks off and a show not liked by everyone which has soared to mega hit proportions thanks to the fact that young audiences, convinced by advertising on the internet and a clip of the show that is airing on U-Tube really are coming to see it.

It has recouped its 6 million-dollar investment, which means its backers will actually make money.

Finally, in keeping up with the new shows that are hitting the boards this coming season here’s one that bears watching. It’s called " Is He Dead?". Talk about a bad name!

Its an adaptation of a never performed Mark Twain comedy and will star a super cast headed by Norman Leo Butz (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) as an artist who stages his own death to drive up the prices for his artwork. Previews start November 9^th at the Lyceum Theater.

Another show, this one a musical about communism written by Tom Stoppard, opens at the Bernard Jacobs theater with its original cast, including Brian Cox, on October 29^th. It’s called "Rock and Roll "and when it was being performed in London’s West End, you couldn’t beg borrow or steal tickets! You’d better start figuring out a way to find tickets as soon as possible.