RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
The housing crisis may not be over, but the curtain has come down on one popular story about trying to keep a roof overhead. The Broadway musical "Rent" ended its 12-year run yesterday after 5,124 performances.
(Soundbite of musical "Rent")
Unidentified Actor: (As Mark) How do you document real life when real life's getting more like fiction each day?
MONTAGNE: "Rent" is a modern-day version of "La Boheme," Puccini's opera about starving artists in Paris. It featured the lives of artists and street people in New York's East Village, just when AIDS was ravaging the city in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The show itself began with a tragedy. After the final dress rehearsal, playwright Jonathan Larson died of an aortic aneurysm at just 35 years old. The show did go on to win Tony Awards, Obies, and a Pulitzer. "Rent" grossed more than $280 million during its Broadway run and more than 600 million dollars worldwide.
And that's the business news on Morning Edition from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
