Tim Weil + Michael Greif: Making Rent

Moderating this conversation is five-time Tony Award nominee Michael Greif. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.

Can’t make the event? Purchase a signed copy of Making Rent here.

ACCESSIBILITY:

Strand Book Store is an ADA compliant venue. The event space is accessible via elevator.

ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our events team at events@strandbooks.com by Jan. 19 to request.

Please ask a Strand employee upon arrival for directions to accessible seating if preferred.

For further information on accessibility in this space, or to make a request, please contact events@strandbooks.com

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From the musical director of Rent comes a thirtieth-anniversary account of how Broadway’s iconic grunge rock show and its music were made and how they would forever reshape musical theater.

Thirty years after Rent, Jonathan Larson’s groundbreaking rock opera, opened on Broadway, you would be hard-pressed to find a musical theater fan who doesn’t know at least some of the show’s iconic tunes by heart. “Take Me or Leave Me,” “Light My Candle,” “La Vie Boheme,” and the ubiquitous “Seasons of Love” revolutionized the kind of music heard on the Broadway stage. Much of the impact comes from the show’s musical style, a singular blend of grunge rock, power pop, gospel, and R & B that was brought to life by the show’s onstage band, headed by the legendary musical director Tim Weil.

From his first day as audition accompanist through his elevation to musical director, Weil was a critical collaborator with Larson in developing Rent’s unique sound. And when, on the eve of the company’s first public performance, Larson died unexpectedly, Weil was there to finesse a still-unfinished show into the musical Larson had long dreamed of.

Making Rent reveals how the music that has shaped generations of new American musicals grew out of Weil and Larson’s intimate partnership and how, for the six years he worked Rent’s Broadway run, Weil endeavored to preserve Larson’s musical vision. Previously untold stories about some of the show’s most iconic moments, accompanied by behind-the-scenes photos, capture the energy, ingenuity, and passion of Rent’s company and creators while providing a unique level of insight into just how collaborative and innovative a process making Rent was and why it has had such a lasting impact on musical theater and fans the world over.

Photo credit: Michael Kushner

Tim Weil is a musical director, composer, arranger, and orchestrator who has worked on more than one hundred productions in New York City and around the world, including Rent, Shrek the Musical, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, and Sally Marr . . . and Her Escorts. His work in film includes Camp and The Marc Pease Experience and he composed songs for the children’s television shows Sheep in the Big City and Bear in the Big Blue House. Tim lives with his wife, the actor Randy Graff, in New Jersey.

Michael Greif (Director) is a five-time Tony Award nominee for his original direction of the groundbreaking musicals Rent, Next to Normal (which both won the Pulitzer Prize), Grey Gardens, Dear Evan Hansen, and Hell's Kitchen. Other notable productions includeWar Paint (Broadway), If/Then (Broadway), The Low Road, Fucking A, Dogeaters, Giant, Machinal, The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide... (The Public Theater), Our Lady of Kibeho,Landscape of the Body,Angels in America (Signature Theatre), A Parallelogram, Make Believe (Second Stage), Far From HeavenandSpatter Pattern (Playwrights Horizons),Man in the Ring (Huntington). In the 2024 Broadway season, Michael directed Alicia Keys'Hell's KitchenandDays of Wine and Roses, and co-directedThe Notebook (with Schele Williams). Off-Broadway, he's received Obie Awards forMachinal,Dogeaters (Public), andRent (NYTW), and has directed new plays and musicals at Playwrights Horizons, Roundabout, MTC, MCC, New York Theatre Workshop and at Second Stage, where he directedNext to Normal and Dear Evan Hansen. Regional work includes premieres and revivals at Williamstown Theatre Festival (ten seasons), La Jolla Playhouse (Artistic Director, five seasons), The Goodman, Arena Stage, Center Stage, Mark Taper Forum, Dallas Theater Center, Trinity Repertory Company. Michael holds a BS from Northwestern University and an MFA from the University of California, San Diego.