SOURCE: "Looking on Broadway for a Bohemian Home," in The New York Times, February 26, 1996, pp. C9, C11.

[In the following review, Marks describes the frenzy surrounding Rent's premiere.]

On the opening night of Rent two weeks ago, the phones in the offices of the New York Theater Workshop began ringing off the hook. They haven't stopped since.

Theater producers, record promoters, film directors, actors, musicians and ordinary theatergoers have been jamming the phone lines in search of tickets to the critically acclaimed rock musical, in a clamor unlike anything the people who run the nonprofit theater on East Fourth Street have ever experienced. Sylvester Stallone showed up early in the run. Whitney Houston's assistants came to check out the score.

The demand was so intense that the 150-seat Off Broadway theater immediately raised the ticket price from $30 to $45 and brought in a small army of volunteers to...