SHOW SYNOPSIS
Rent takes place in the 1990's in New York City's East Village, a neighborhood teeming with young artists and street life- but shadowed by homelessness and the AIDS epidemic. The Musical unfolds over a year inthe lives of eight men and women and their friends.



Act 1
Mark, a filmaker and the musical's narrator, is spending a cold Christmas Eve in the industrial loft he shares with his roomate, Roger, a rock musician. Mark has recently lost his girlfriend, Maureen, a performance artist, to Joanne, a lawyer. Roger and Mark's landlord(and ex-roomate), Benny, leaves a phone message demanding the rent. Then the power in the building blows and Mark and Roger vent their anger.
Outside, their friend Tom Collins, a university professor and computer whiz, is reeling from being mugged on the street. He is comforted by Angel, a street musician, who offers him a helping hand. Both men are HIV-positive. They head out for a night on the town and a life-support meeting for those with AIDS and for their friends and relatives.
In response to a call for technical help from Maureen, Mark sets out for the site where she is getting ready to perform a protest against Benny's eviction of the homeless from a nearby lot. Roger refuses to come agong; he has not left the apartment in six months. He is despondent from the suicide of his girlfriend, who slashed her wrists upon learning she had AIDS. Roger is also infected and is struggling to write a great song that will outlive him.
Mimi, a beautiful dancer who lives below Mark and Roger, knocks with a request: "Light my candle." The attraction between Mimi- who is addicted to heroin- and Roger is immediate, but he shies away and shows her the door.
As Joanne wrangles with the sound equipment for Maureen's performance, Collins arrives at the loft with the transvestite, Angel, gloriously arrayed in his Christmas finest: wig, glitter and platform pumps. Benny enters with a proposal: If Mark and Roger stop Maureen's protest, he will forgo the rent. He tempts them with his plans for Cyber Arts, a multi-media studio that will realize all their dreams. Unsuccessful, Benny leaves. Mark, Collins, and Angel try to coax Roger into coming to the life-support meeting with them, but he resists.
Mark finally reaches the lot where Maureen will perform. He encounters Joanne, still battling the sound system and trying to meet the many demands Maureen makes on her. Mark offers his help. Then he joins Angel and Collins at the life-support meeting, who's members sing: "There's only us/there's only this/ forget regret, or life is your to miss/ No other road/ no other way/ no day but today."
In her apartment, Mimi dresses and appeals to an imaginary Roger to take her "out tonight." She barges into his apartment and continues her appeal to Roger himself, but after a passionate kiss he vehemently rejects her. They fight, her words blending with the affirmation of the support group where a young man asks quietly: "Will I lose my dignity?/ Will someone care?"
His thoughts and fears are echoed by each member of the community. The thoughts are Roger's too, and he decides to go outside.
After the meeting, Mark, Angel, and Collins, defeated for the moment by life in New York, dream of opening up a restaurant in Santa Fe. Alone at last, Angel and Collins express their love for each other in song.
The scene changes to St. Mark's place where vendors hawk their wares to the bohemians of the East Village. Angel buys a new coat for Collins. Mark finds Roger, who spots Mimi looking for drugs. Roger apologizes for his behavior and asks her to dinner. Just as the snow begins to fall, Maureen finally appears on her motorcycle to perform her protest.
Following the performance art, all convene at the Life Cafe, including Benny, who tells them: "I'm the one/ attempting to do some good/ or do you really want a neighborhood/ Where people piss on your stoop every night/ Bohemia's a falacy in your head/ This is Calcutta/ Bohemia's dead." His pronouncement triggers a mock-wake that quickly turns into a celebration in song of the artist's life.
Benny confronts Mimi and threatens to reveal their past love affair to Roger. Beepers go off to remind the revelers to take their AZT. Roger and Mimi discover that the other is HIV-positive. They vow to be together.
Joanne, who has been sent back to the lot by Maureen several times to check on the equipment finally rebels, telling Maureen that their relationship is over. She also announces a riot in the lot: Benny has padlocked the apartment building and called the police, but the homeless are standing their ground. The artists rejoice, the riot continues, and Roger and Mimi share a small, lovely kiss.

Act 2 It is one week later, New Year's Eve, and Mark, Roger, Mimi, Maureen, Joanne, Angel, and Collins are having a breaking-back-into-the-building party. Once inside, Mark listens to a phone message from Alexi Darling, a tabloid TV producer salivating over his footage of the riot and pursuing him to work for her TV show. Benny crashes the party, angering Roger and alienating him from Mimi. Dejected, Mimi wanders outside and into the welcoming arms of her drug dealer.
Valentine's Day: Roger and Mimi are still together. Angel and Collins could be anywhere. Maureen and Joanne are rehearsing another show, but it is not going well. Soon it is spring, Roger and Mimi have a fight, and Roger walks out. Alone, Mimi reflects on what life would be like without Roger. Collins nurses Angel, who has become seriously ill, and Maureen and Joanne reconcile, as do Mimi and Roger.
At the end of the summer, Alexi is still courting Mark - by telephone- for her TV show: Roger and Mimi, frustrated by love's complications, break up, as do Marueen and Joanne. Angel dies. At a memorial service, his friends remember his spirit, and Collins remembers his love.
Outside the church,Mark phones Alexi to accept her job offer. As the mourners leave, Mimi learns that Roger has sold his guitar and is leaving town, and Roger finds out that Mimi is now with Benny. A fight erupts among Roger, Mimi, Maureen, Benny and Joanne- and Collins interrupts them with a sorrowfull reality that their family is breaking up. Joanne and Maureen reunite. Mimi and Benny leave.
Mark tries to convince Roger to stay in New York, to face his pain and the fact that Mimi has become very sick. Roger attacks Mark, accusing him of hiding his feelings. Mimi enters, having overheard the entire exchange, and bids Roger farewell. Roger leaves town, and Benny offers one helping hand to Mimi and extends the other to Collins to help him pay Angel's funeral expenses. Mimi, however, refuses the help and flees.
Mark considers the events and faces of the last year, as does Roger, who is on his way to Santa Fe. Roger begins to discover his own song, an Mark turns down the television job; he will, instead, finish the film he cares about.
Back at the loft, Mark tells us that once again it is Christmas Eve and he now has a rough version of his film, which he is going to show tonight. Roger has returned, has written his song, but cannot find Mimi. Collins enters with money he has gotten from an ATM that he has rewired to give money to anyone with a special code. The password is Angel.
Maureen and Joanne suddenly arrive holding Mimi, whom they found collapsed and near death in the park. Roger begs her not to die and sings for her the song it has taken him all year to write: "Where there's moonlight/ I see your eyes/ You were the song all along/ And before this song dies/ I should tell you.../ I have always loved you/ you can see it in my eyes."
Mimi dies as Roger wails her name over a blast of Puccini's music. Suddenly Mimi awakens: It seems that a guardian Angel was watching over her.
The company joins in a reprise of the affirmation that love is all- there is "no day but today."


RENT SONG TITLES

Act 1
1. Tune Up/Voice Mail #1
2. Rent
3. You Okay Honey?
4. One Song Glory
5. Light My Candle
6. Voice Mail #2
7. Today 4 U
8. You'll See
9. Tango: Maureen
10.Life Support
11.Out Tonight
12.Another Day
13.Will I?
14.On the Street
15.Santa Fe
16.I'll Cover You
17.We're Okay
18.Christmas Bells
19.Over the Moon
20.La Vie Boheme/I Should Tell You

Act 2
21.Seasons of Love
22.Happy New Year/Voice Mail #3
23.Take Me or Leave Me
24.Without You
25.Voice Mail #4
26.Contact
27.Ill Cover You:Reprise
28.Halloween
29.Goodbye, Love
30.What You Own
31.Voice Mail #5
32.Your Eyes/Finale




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