Anthony Rapp captures the passion and grit unique to the theatre world as he recounts his life-changing experience in the original cast of the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Rent.
Anthony had a special feeling about Jonathan Larson's rock musical from his first audition, so he was thrilled when he landed a starring role as the filmmaker Mark Cohen. With his mom's cancer in remission and a reason to quit his newly acquired job at Starbucks, his life was looking up.
When Rent opened to thunderous acclaim off Broadway, Rapp and his fellow cast members knew that something truly extraordinary had taken shape. But even as friends and family were celebrating the show's success, they were also mourning Jonathan Larson's sudden death from an aortic aneurysm. By the time Rent made its triumphant jump to Broadway, Larson had posthumously won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize. When Anthony's mom began to lose her battle with cancer, he struggled to balance the demands of life in the theatre with his responsibility to his family. Here, Anthony recounts the show's magnificent success and his overwhelming loss. He also shares his first experiences discovering his sexuality, the tension it created with his mother, and his struggle into adulthood to gain her acceptance.
Variously marked by fledgling love and devastating loss, piercing frustration and powerful enlightenment, Without You charts the course of Rapp's exhilarating journey with the cast and crew of Rent as well as the intimacies of his personal life behind the curtain.
losing
my
religion
I.
I sat down on the curb of Forty-fourth Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues, in front of the St. James Theatre, and glanced at my watch: no way was I going to be on time for my audition. Fuck. I raced to get my shoes off and my skates and helmet on, and launched myself into traffic, my skates gliding and buzzing, my arms pumping, my breath quickening, my skin relishing the balmy autumnal breeze that flowed around me. Rushing around New York City like this had always focused me: all my senses became more acute as I sped down Broadway, swerving among taxis and around jaywalkers, sprinting through yellow lights, avoiding at all costs any lethal car doors that threatened to spring open in my path. I hoped the Rent people would understand my reason for being late. They should. It wasn't as if I could've just up and left my friend Bill's memorial service early; that would have been unconscionable. I would just have to explain myself.
Ten min ... read full excerpt from Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent ebook
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