SOURCE: "The Show Goes On," in Washington Post, April 18, 1996, p. C1.

[In the following review, Span relates the genesis of Rent and its phenomenal growth.]

Opening night looms, and at the Nederlander Theater all is chaos.

An artist with one name (Billy) and two earrings is painting graffiti-ish murals on the mezzanine ceiling to invoke that gritty downtown ambiance. Workers are installing cheetah-spotted carpeting in the lobby. Onstage, 24-year-old Wilson Jermaine Heredia rehearses a dance number that calls for him to hop onto and off a table, no small feat in a Santa jacket, zebra-striped tights, a wig and huge platform heels. The theater reeks of sawdust.

Understandable disorder. The new musical Rent—a rock-and-roll reimagining of the Puccini opera La Boheme, set among the video artists, junkies, musicians and homeless people of the East Village—has careened onto Broadway. It began previews this week, after a series...