In these pages Rent offers what most theater books can t: a chance to step behind the curtain and feel the electricity of a stage phenomenon as it unfolds. Rent has single-handedly reinvigorated Broadway and taken America by storm. Sweeping all major theater awards including the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for drama as well as four 1996 Tony Awards including Best Musical Best Book and Best Score for a Musical Rent captures the heart and spirit of a generation refleting it onstage through the emotion of its stirring words and music and the energy of its young cast. Now for the first time Rent comes to life on the page -- through vivid color photographs the full libretto and an utterly compelling behind-the-scenes oral history of the show s creation. Here is the exclusive and absolutely complete companion to Rent told in the voices of the extraordinary talent behind its success: the actors the director the producers and the librettist and composer himself Jonathan Larson whose sudden death on the eve of the first performance has made Rent s life-affirming message all the more poignant