Rent, a reimagining of Puccini’s La Bohème, follows a year in the lives of seven struggling artists in New York City’s East Village. Now the show has returned with a 20th-anniversary tour — and its message of hope resonates as strongly as ever. SUMMER 2017 | artsLife 65 the Files of Jenna Hunterson, has just been released by Penguin Publishing Group, which touts it as “the perfect gift for anyone who has ever eaten her feelings or baked away the blues.” “Musicals commonly have a second-act problem,” wrote Charles McNulty of the Los Angeles Times, who praised the show’s character development. “Waitress is one of the few that actually gets better as it goes along.” The show was nominated for four Tonys, including Best Musical, in 2016. ■ Something Rotten! (April 24–29, 2018). If your appreciation of musical theater is limited to the 20th century and beyond, then here’s a chance to expand your horizons. Something Rotten! raucously imagines the birth of the musical in the 1590s, when brothers and aspiring playwrights Nick and Nigel Bottom are desperately struggling to escape the pervasive shadow of William Shakespeare. “Shakespeare is like a rock star,” says Karey Kirkpatrick, who collaborated on Something Rotten! with his own brother, Grammywinning songwriter Wayne Kirkpatrick. “We always talked about him early on as being a cross between Mick Jagger, James Brown, Tom Jones and a little bit of Austin Powers.” When a local soothsayer foretells that the future of theater involves singing, dancing and acting at the same time, Nick and ������������ �������� �������� ������ ������������ �������� ���������������� ���������� ���������� musical — and to upstage the egomaniacal Bard, whom a jealous Nick derides as “a mediocre actor from a measly little town.” Something Rotten! is jam-packed with sly and silly homages. “A Musical,” for example, is an over-the-top production number in which the cast celebrates (and satirizes) PHOTO BY CAROL ROSEGG
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