Editing Rent (musical) (section)

===New York workshops and Off-Broadway production===
''Rent'' had its first staged reading at New York Theatre Workshop in March 1993.<ref name="Odyssey"/>  A further two-week [[New York Theatre Workshop]] version was performed in 1994 starring Anthony Rapp as Mark and Daphne Rubin-Vega as Mimi, and more workshops followed. The show opened in 1996, again at New York Theatre Workshop, and quickly gained popularity off-Broadway, receiving enthusiastic reviews.  ''The New York Times'' theater critic [[Ben Brantley]] called it an "exhilarating, landmark rock opera" with a "glittering, inventive score" that "shimmers with hope for the future of the American musical."<ref>Brantley, Ben. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E7DC1239F937A25751C0A960958260 "Rock Opera A la 'Boheme' And 'Hair'"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101215220232/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E7DC1239F937A25751C0A960958260 |date=December 15, 2010 }}, ''The New York Times'', February 14, 1996</ref>  Another reviewer wrote, "''Rent'' speaks to [[Generation X]] the way that the musical ''[[Hair (musical)|Hair]]'' spoke to the [[baby boomers]] or those who grew up in the 1960s," while the ''New York Times'' similarly called it "a rock opera for our time, a ''Hair'' for the 90s."<ref name="Comet">{{cite news|title=The Birth of a Theatrical Comet|website=The New York Times|date=March 17, 1996|url=https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60B10F83D5D0C748DDDAA0894DE494D81|pages=Section 2 page 1|access-date=February 12, 2017|archive-date=May 30, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070530152118/http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60B10F83D5D0C748DDDAA0894DE494D81|url-status=live}}</ref> The show proved extremely successful off-Broadway, selling out all of its performances at the 150-seat theatre.<ref name="Rent: Glory"/>