The World Of 'Rent'

When production began on "Rent," Jonathan called his friend Timothy Britten Parker to offer him a role in the ensemble. He told Parker, "Toby, I'm so happy. I finally have a life in the theater." Larson would have loved to see the way his cast and his characters grew together, changing each other in the process. He was fascinated with other people's tales. The actress Molly Ringwald, a friend of his for the last four years, remembers his helping her move into her apartment. "I knew him as the person who'd hang up my Dustbuster," she says. The day of the move, he sat around her living room with a big smile on his face, looking at all her stuff. "He wanted to know where everything came from," she says. "It wasn't like he was interested in the deco, but in the stories." This was Larson: always devoted, always curious. His stories, and those of his friends, are now the freshest, most loving show on Broadway. He'd have loved to see that, too.

YAHLIN CHANG and NINA A. BIDDLE

© 1996