RENT

Musical Theatre Screening Series: RENT

On Saturday, August 1, we launch a new series of musical theatre screenings with the acclaimed 2008 stage recording of the rock musical RENT.

🎭 About the Musical

Set in New York's East Village in the early 1990s, RENT follows a group of musicians, artists, and dreamers struggling to create, love, and survive in a city where paying the rent is a daily challenge and the AIDS epidemic casts a constant shadow over their lives.

Inspired by Giacomo Puccini's opera La Bohème, the story moves from the attic apartments of 19th-century Paris to the squats and lofts of modern-day New York, creating one of the most influential musicals in theatre history.

RENT famously inspired a young Lin-Manuel Miranda to pursue musical theatre—a journey that would eventually lead him to create Hamilton.

☀️ After the Screening

Together we'll discuss:

• What defines a rock opera, and how RENT differs from Jesus Christ Superstar.
• How Puccini's opera was transformed into a modern rock musical—and what remained from the original story.
• Why RENT became known as "the musical of a generation" and how it transformed Broadway.
• The differences between the stage production and the 2005 film adaptation.
• Why some musicals are fortunate enough to receive professional recordings, with rare bootleg footage from the original 1996 Broadway production.

✨ The evening will be hosted by Lev Levin—former musical theatre performer, former editor of Igromania, and the Russian subtitle translator for Hamilton and Billy Elliot.

💰 Participation Fee: 20 GEL

📩 Places are limited.