Living the Good Life: Broadway Shows & Impermanence

In 1996, the musical Rent premiered Off-Broadway to a sold-out crowd and a standing ovation. A few months later, after its continued success, the decision was finally made to move the show to Broadway where it opened at the Nederlander Theatre on April 29, 1996.

In the years to follow, Rent would become a sensation on Broadway and go on win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Musical, the Tony Award for Best Original Score, and many other prestigious awards.

But there's a tragedy in this story. Jonathan Larson, the show's creator, died the day before the show premiered. Just ten days before his 36th birthday and the night before the show was to start at an Off-Broadway theatre, Larson was found by his roommate collapsed on the kitchen floor. While the exact cause of his death is still debated, Larsen had been suffering from dizziness, chest pain, and shortness of breath the days leading up to his death.

Larson, who had been trying for over a decade to get a show on Broadway, would never know the heights of success of which Rent would reach. He would never get to receive his awards or see the audience's reaction when his show went live.

While the impact of Larson's work is undeniable, his story illustrates the fragility of life and how we can never know when our time will be up. The only thing that is for sure is that, with each day that goes by, we have less time on this planet than we had the day before. The sand in our hour glass continues to drop down.

Larsen changed the theatrical world with his musical Rent and I'm sure he would've considered his short time on this planet time well spent.

The question for us then becomes, how do we want to spend our short time here? We may not have the ambition of a Jonathan Larsen, but we all (deep down) have our own version of what the "good life" looks like to us.

How can you do one small thing today to live your own version of the "good life"?

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🙏 P.S. My wife, Pema Sherpa and I just launched a new Instagram account called @Daily.Buddhist ! Follow us! 🙏