The Best Rent Money Ever Spent

How you gonna pay last year’s rent? This year’s rent? Next year’s rent?

Broadway’s Tony award-winning musical, Rent, is now playing at the Paramount Theatre through June 21. You want to see it (you need to see it!), but how you can afford a ticket and still pay your rent?!? You aren’t as broke as the characters in the musical, but you also don’t want to eat Ramen noodles for a month in order to buy tickets!

Rent’s creator, Jonathan Larson (now deceased), was a struggling artist when he created Rent and he understood the constraints of an empty wallet. With that in mind, he established a tradition that discounted tickets be offered for every performance. Deal Alert!!! $20 tickets to Rent are available to anyone! Tickets go on sale two hours before the show (cash only) and are for the first two rows of orchestra seats!

Scrounge in the couch cushions, forgo the lattes, do whatever you have to because you must see this show! What makes this production special is that it stars two of the original Broadway cast members, Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp. I saw the touring production a few years ago and it was an amateurish, anemic version compared to this current blockbuster. Pascal and Rapp made it to Broadway for good reason and they carry the show on their shoulders. Their voices fill the Paramount to the rafters and they fully inhabit the characters that they originated 13 years ago. After seeing the caliber of their performances, I want to hop a plane to New York and see everything that Broadway has to offer. Luckily for cash-strapped Seattleites, Broadway has come to us! 

For more details, check Seattle magazine’s Datebook listing at seattlemag.com/0p66ev868/rent/.

-Deanna Duff