[Monsieur D'Arque]

What is Rent's specific time period? Most people say generic late-80s early 90s, but i've heard that contested. Some people tend to say it's the entire year 1996. Others hold to the movie's date as canon, since the year is never alluded to in the stage play but spelled out strictly in the film.

Rent Remixed, however, cocks things up further with its updates, leading me to believe that IT may take place in 2006.

What's the word?

[ActingDude17]

[Monsieur D'Arque]

I wouldnt' say that. It's not the end of the decade, which is a small enough time period to have such a distinction. The eighties and the nineties are both basically the end of the milennium.

[ActingDude17]

My point was it had to be the late 20th century.

On another note: it can't be 1996. 1996 has the day February 29th, which would add another 1,440 minutes, for a new total of 527,040 minutes. Seasons of Love declares there are 526,000 minutes in the specific year.

[Monsieur D'Arque]

Rent Remixed may- but its stylistic and lyrical mishmash of changes and edits makes it impossible to tell. Especially as it's made VERY clear that they're not living in America at all.

[what_the_heck013]

[SomeoneLikeYou]

It was apparently a very bad production of Rent that was done in Australia. It was quite different from the musical we all know and love, so it was a failure.

At least, I think that's what it was. Correct me if I'm wrong, lol!

[RainbowJude]

There are lots of clues to help us. First one, the AZT ritual with the alarm clocks as a cultural marker for people living with HIV/AIDS. AZT was first prescribed in much higher dosages. From Susan Schulman's book, Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America, we know the following:

[Tom]

I recently directed a production of RENT and I went over the libretto with a "fine tooth comb" looking for all the historical and social references. Based on the lyrics of the show, the plays has to be the mid-90's. Here are a few of the more obvious lyrical cues as to the time of the show.

Thelma & Louise : A 1991 “Road” movie featuring two female protagonists. At the end of the film, they drive their car over the rim of the Grand Canyon rather than face going to jail. (Today 4 U)

Newt’s Lesbian Sister : Newt Gingrich became the Republican Speaker of the House during the Clinton years (1992-2000). Newt's sister, Candace Gingrich announced she was a lesbian in 1995 to bring attention to Gay causes. Her 1996 autobiography, "The Accidental Activist", was a best seller in the GLBT community (We're Okay)

Rental truck, fertilizer & fuel oil: A reference to the April 19, 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. (Over the Moon)

Maureen's evoking of the Oklahoma City bombing in the song "Over the Moon" and Joanne's mention of Newt's sister in "We're Okay" means that the play could not have taken place before 1995.

Doing dramaturgical research of the libretto would set the opening of the play on December 24, 9 pm EST 1995. The majority of the play takes place in 1996, which would be consistent with when the play opened on Off-Broadway/Broadway as a "current" story. Since Larson died in 1996, I don't believe the action can take place any later than 1996.

The movie was set in the late 80's because of the riot at Maureen's protest. There was a real riot that occurred between police and homeless on August 6-7, 1988. It took place in Tompkin's Square Park over curfew rules. Tompkin's Square Park is across the street from the Life Cafe and about a block down the street from where Mark and Roger would have been living.

[Monsieur D'Arque]

Also, the musical score is more consistent with the late '80s than the mid '90s, as the major artistic influences of certain major songs include Prince, Bon Jovi, the Clash, and Lita Ford. Despite the "grunge" appearance the show is commonly said to have, grunge and post-punk influence the show's score very little.

[Disney-Bway27]

Rent Remixed sucks.
They also changed it to
"You're living in America at the dawn of the milennium".

Yeah, it should never be thought of. Ever.

I was turned on to Rent by the movie, so 89 to 90 sounds good to me. But Thelma and Louise came out later... Anytime in the generic 90s sounds good to me.

[what_the_heck013]

Tom, that is REALLY impressive. Perhaps it's a mixture of the late-80's and mid-90's. The late-80's being when Larson experienced much of this, and the mid-90's being when he actually wrote Rent.
After all, none of the time periods in Shakespeare's masterpieces are exactly defined with all of the anachronisms.

I mean, in 100 years people will just say, "Oh, Rent takes place somewhere near the end of the 20th century".

[Vice]

[theatre4life]

just a couple of things:

wasnt Rent Remixed in London, not Australia?

and, i think that if you're gonna try and figure out when exactly Rent takes place by the references to films in songs or political person's homosexual relatives or drug references, etc - you're not gonna get a 100% accurate time period, because Jonathan Larson had been writing Rent for many years before the first read-thru even (which i believe in the documentary "No Day But Today" was said to have been in 1993). so Im sure some things just never got updated.

[What you own]

One of the magor things that tells us about the time priond of RENT is we know it had to happen before the gentrifacation of the lower east side. Which one of the many of number of reasons why RENT can not take place in modern times. In the 1990's there where estimated to be between 500 and 1,000 squatters that occupied 32 buildings on the Lower East Side. The buildings where falling apart, decaying and the owners had abandoned them or by police raids as part of the crackdown on drugs. I always precieved the Newts Lesiban sister and Oklahoma bombing historical accuricites.

Rainbowjude that is really intresting about the AZT.

Intresting article on RENT I acidently found
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/nyregion/thecity/13rent.html?_r=2&ref=thecity&oref=slogin

and this one http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/nyregion/thecity/13rent.html


Now I'm spending far to much times reading articles on the New York Times and Wikipeida on this subject and not typeing to much. So I guess I'm goign to have to come back and either edit my post to include new info or just make a another post. But now I keep getting distracted by the numerous articles I'm reading and about of reserch and the math homework that is looming over my head, and will not let me be untill I do it.

[Disney-Bway27]

[What you own]

Ha ha ha that might have just made my day.

[Disney-Bway27]

I try.

[Sphynx]

I'm ashamed of myself - I listen to Over the Moon all the time, and I've lived in OKC all my life and still didn't catch the bombing reference! That's impressive

[audreydarling]