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Rent

This Broadway musical isn’t 5,026,600 minutes long, though you might wish it was

A A A Comments By Lee Williams Thursday, Jul 22 2010

Jonathan Larson’s Rent, a postmodern remix of Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème, took New York by storm in the mid-’90s. The story was über-original at the time (it turned Puccini’s penniless bohemians in love in 19th-century Paris into 20th-century hipsters in the Big Apple). The groundbreaking show features characters with AIDS, characters who were gay and characters who were fighting the capitalists. It moved from a workshop to off-Broadway to Broadway, winning a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award along the way. The politics of Larson’s musical might be yesterday’s news, but the appeal of starving artists and doomed lovers will never grow old. And the cool rock-opera music still works its heart-pounding magic. The musical’s signature song is “Seasons of Love,” with its famous “Five million, twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes…” opening, although “I’ll Cover You” and “Out Tonight” are also audience favorites. See Masquerade Theatre’s production of Rentat 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sunday. Through August 1. Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For information, call 713-861-7045 or visit www.masqueradetheatre.com. $36.25 to $66.25