no day but today

1 year
12 months
52 weeks
365 days
8760 hours
525, 600 minutes
31,536,000 seconds

How do you measure a year in the life? Is it in a moment? Is it in a song, a laugh, a smile, a memory, a kiss?

When you realize that time is running out, how will you choose to live your last moments here on Earth? That seems like a pretty loaded question and one that, I imagine, requires pause for thought. What probably requires even more thought is realizing the fact that the majority of us won't even get the luxury of actually knowing when we're going to die. We'll either go in our sleep or, God forbid, in some accident that we never saw coming and then what? We won't have time to make that list of "all the things I want to do before I die." It'll be too late. It's a scary thought, right? No, not the thought of dying - I'm talking about the thought of not really living. That's what scares me most of all.

Tonight I watched a 2 hour documentary about actor/writer/composer Jonathan Larson, the genius behind the Broadway musical sensation RENT. For those of you who aren't familiar with Jonathan's story, it's one that I'll argue is even more touching and inspiring than that of RENT itself. As I listened to Jonathan's friends and family talk about his passion and his determination, I couldn't help but be moved. Jonathan knew that he was going to do it; he was going to revolutionize Broadway and the way the world viewed musical theatre. Not only did he succeeded creatively, but RENT's social impact was equally as impressive. Set in the late 80s at a time when the AIDS epidemic was sweeping across America, RENT chronicles a year in the lives of a group of artist friends in lower east side NYC and documents their struggles with disease, homelessness, love, and loss. Even in a one sentence description of the show, you can get a sense of the immenseness of the issues that RENT aimed to explore. Today, RENT boasts worldwide acclaim and has gone on to become one of the most successful shows, both domestically and internationally, of all time. It struck a chord with the people. They saw themselves in these characters and could relate to the human drama that Jonathan had so poignantly told through song. Sadly, Jonathan himself was never able to revel in the glory of the show's success. On the night of the final dress rehearsal, Jonathan died alone in his apartment of an ruptured aorta at age 35 - less than 24 hours away from seeing the musical he had spent over 7 years creating perform its first show. The irony and eerie timing of Jonathan's death rocked the theatre community and, as you can imagine, the cast who were scheduled to open that night. They decided to honor his memory by performing the show as Jonathan would have wanted, his dad reminding everyone through tears that "the show must go on."

I was so touched by how much of himself this man poured into his work and how dedicated he was to creating something he felt that he had to do. I think that's what separates the greats from the ordinary - the feeling of knowing they're going to do something great or big with their lives and not making any excuses for it. This man's entire life revolved around the theatre - around writing music and creating stories that he felt in his soul he needed to tell. As an aspiring filmmaker, I can only hope to embody half of what Jonathan did and make some fraction of the impact on the cinema that Jonathan did to the world of musical theatre.

If you haven't seen RENT live on stage, I charge you to do so. You won't be able to leave the theatre without being moved or rocked or changed in some way; I don't care who you are. If you aren't able to see it on stage, the new movie does a pretty good job of conveying the emotion, although I might argue that buying the original 1996 cast recording on CD would be just as good. The best thing about buying the DVD is, in my opinion, this beautiful tribute documentary to Jonathan and his creation. His personal story is riveting and so emotionally compelling.

I want to make a movie about Jonathan Larson's life. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do. Anybody want to help? There is so much raw drama in the truth of his life that I don't think I could write anything better than what actually happened. He lived life just like the characters he created in RENT, knowing that we only have this moment, right here, right now. There's no day but today.

Thank you, Jonathan, for your contribution to the theatre and to all artists out there like me who want so badly to do something big.