?Measure your life in love? is a lyric that we strive to live by from the musical ?Rent,? but why bring it up? Anthony Rapp, best known for originating the role of Mark Cohen in ?Rent? is coming to campus Tuesday, Oct. 10.
For all of you ?Rentheads? out there, you already know who Rapp is. He?s coming to Tech as this year?s LGBTA National Coming Out Day speaker and is sponsored by both the LGBTA and Virginia Tech Union.
Rapp is also coming to promote his book ?Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss and the Musical ?Rent?? which deals with the struggle of losing his mother to cancer, friends to AIDS and, of course, his experiences with ?Rent.?
He will be speaking in Squires Colonial Hall at 7 p.m. Tickets for students are $1 and non-VT students are $3.
Liz Ford, president of LGBTA, said they?ve always been interested in getting a cast member from ?Rent? to come and speak, but lacked the funds. But when VTU approached them about sponsoring Anthony Rapp with them, she jumped at the chance.
?We look for a speaker who will have impact in not only the LGBTA community but the Virginia Tech and Blacksburg community as well. They talk about coming out, not coming out? We?ve had Judy Shepard (mother of Matthew Shepard, who was murdered in what now is considered an anti-gay bias crime), and Danny from (MTV?s) ?The Real World? in the past,? Ford said.
With next Wednesday being National Coming Out Day, the LGBTA will be on the drillfield with a banner to be signed by students.
?National Coming Out Day is not just for lesbians, gays, bisexuals or transsexuals. It is for anyone coming out an as ally, someone who supports gay rights and anti-discriminators. The banner is for everyone,? Ford said. ?When Judy Shepard came, she spoke about ?how every day should be a coming out day.??
When asked why Rapp enjoys speaking at colleges, his agent, David Buchalter, said, ?College is specifically an instrumental point for people in their lives. Anthony?s book talks about the pivotal time in his life when he had to come to terms with his mother being diagnosed with the terminal disease, cancer, and auditioning for ?Rent.? It?s just a good match with college students.?
Buchalter also said Rapp uses his book and incorporates it in a lecture about diversity, ?Rent?, LGBTA and other important issues.
Norma Mencia, junior civil engineering major, found out about Rapp?s coming because of an e-mail she got from the office of Multicultural Affairs. She plans on attending the event and said, ?I think everyone at Tech needs to become more aware and supportive of the gay community.?
?Rent? has been on Broadway for 11 years. It took quite a bit of time (seven years) to move it the original idea to the first public performance. Jonathan Larson, writer of the music, lyrics and the book, loosely based his musical on the opera ?La Boheme.?
Tragedy struck when Larson died unexpectedly on Jan. 25, 1996. He had just come home from the final dress rehearsal of ?Rent? at the New York Theatre Workshop, put on a pot of tea and died. He had been feeling sick and collapsed during a previous rehearsal; doctors just shrugged it off as the flu. It turns out his death was caused by an aortic aneurysm. Larson?s dream lives on, the show premiered to wonderful reviews and continues to win a countless numbers of new fans.