Jeffrey Seller

Jonathan invited me to the first ever staged reading of Rent in the spring of 93.

Stage reading means actors are reading and singing in front of music stands with the scripts in front of them.

And there may be a band or a piano and a drum.

And I go down.

It was at New York Theatre Workshop.

It was a hot day in June.

And I actually had met this guy who wanted to be a producer and I knew came from a very wealthy family in Australia.

So I thought maybe if I bring this guy and he loves it, I can get him to invest.

That guy leaves at intermission.

Yeah.

The reading starts with the song Rent, and it's like a wallop.

It's great.

But then immediately the show kind of disintegrates into all these different songs about life in the East Village, and it really has no spine.

It doesn't have a plot that's coming through yet.

And that reading kind of drones on for almost three hours.

It's like 90 degrees in there.

And then this other guy who was there that I was with says, well, Jonathan's very talented, but he should just try something else.

He should just work on something else.

And then Jonathan calls me and says, okay, let's go to dinner.

I want to hear what you think.