I'm Anna Lee Ashford.

Hi, this is Queen Leslie Bolger.

Queen Leslie Margarita.

Hi, I'm Eden Espinoza.

I'm Katie Finneran.

Hi, I'm Laura Osniss, and you're listening to Theater People.

Welcome to the Theater People podcast. I'm Patrick Collins.

In May of 1996, just a week or so after I graduated high school, as a graduation gift, my best friends Allison, Lucas, and Rachel, agreed to indulge me in my obsessive desire to get to

New York City to see a new musical called Rent, which had just opened on Broadway

a few weeks before. Somehow we found out that we could get $20 front row tickets if we got

to the theater early enough and were willing to wait in line all day. It sounded like a great deal

to us. We got there later than we wanted to, around 7.30 a.m. I think, and we spent the first

part of our day counting and recounting the people ahead of us in line, trying to be sure we'd actually get tickets.

We went for 11 hours on that sidewalk in front of here, sitting and sometimes sleeping,

the life-sized pictures of that gorgeous cast, standing at the third stage, singing what we'd come to find out were seasons of love.

Details from that day are burned into my brain.

I remember Lucas, just as we were finally being measured into the theater to pay for our tickets,

nervously putting a $20 bill in his mouth and then spinning it out of me, only to watch it disappear in the summer grade.

I remember when we got to our seats being so overcome by being there that I just started to cry.

And I remember as the show started, when the full cast made their way to the stage

to sing the tango-trane, the artist was going to feel like the show

there.

...