RENT

When creating the world of RENT, I kept returning to two central ideas: the rock concert and the chosen family. The show’s score remains part of the cultural soundscape decades later. Drawing inspiration from the photography of Baron Wolman and Ebet Roberts, and my own experience as a Gen X member of the MTV generation listening to Bowie, Prince, and Cobain, the production took on the energy of a band on tour—artists making art together, surviving together. The set nodded to the opera house and the alleyway, grandeur and grit side by side. Costumes and lighting pulled from the chaos and beauty of underground clubs, street corners, and music venues. In the end, this was a story about finding your people—not by blood, but by spirit. A story about tribe.