Sep 8, 2008 6:45 am US/Eastern
'Rent' Closes On Broadway
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
After a dozen years and more than 5,000 performances, Broadway has said goodbye to the musical "Rent."
The cast of the show was given a standing ovation even before a single note was sung in its finale Sunday at the Nederlander Theatre in New York. Members of both the final cast and the original one joined together on stage at the end of the evening to sing "Seasons of Love," one of the show's best-known songs.
Jonathan Larson's tale of free-spirited artists and street people in a gritty drug and AIDS-plagued East Village of the early 1990s started off-Broadway. But its immense popularity quickly landed it on Broadway, where it won numerous awards, including Tonys and Obies. It grossed more than $280 million.
Larson didn't live to see the show's success. He died after the final dress rehearsal in 1996 at the age of 35.
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