given credit for "original concept & additional lyrics". Jonathan Larson focused on composing Rent in the early 1990s, waiting tables at the Moondance Diner to support himself. Over the course of years, Larson wrote hundreds of songs and made many drastic changes to the show, which in its final incarnation contained 42 songs. In the fall of 1992, Larson approached James Nicola, artistic director of New York Theatre Workshop, with a tape and copy of Rents script. When Rent had its first staged reading at New York Theatre Workshop in March 1993, it became evident that, despite its very promising material and moving musical numbers, many structural problems needed to be addressed, including its cumbersome length and overly complex plot. As of 1994, the New York Theatre Workshop version of Rent featured songs that never made it into the final version, such as: "You're a Fool" "Do a Little Business", the predecessor of "You'll See", featuring Benny, Mark, Roger, Collins and Angel "Female to Female A & B", featuring Maureen and Joanne "He's a Fool" "He Says" "Right Brain", later rewritten as "One Song Glory", featuring Roger "You'll Get Over It", the predecessor of "Tango: Maureen", featuring Mark and Maureen "Real Estate", a number wherein Benny tries to convince Mark to become a real estate agent and drop his filmmaking "Open Road", the predecessor of "What You Own", with a backing track similar to this in "Your Eyes" This workshop version of Rent starred Anthony Rapp as Mark and Daphne Rubin-Vega as Mimi. Larson continued to work on Rent, gradually reworking its flaws and staging more workshop productions. On January 24, 1996, after the musical's final dress rehearsal before its off-Broadway opening, Larson had his first (and only) newspaper interview with music critic Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times, attracted by the coincidence that the show was debuting exactly 100 years after Puccini's opera. Larson would not live to see Rents success; he died from an undiagnosed aortic aneurysm (believed to have resulted from Marfan syndrome) in the early morning of January 25, 1996. Friends and family gathered at the New York Theatre Workshop, and the first preview of Rent became a sing-through of the musical in Larson's memory. The show premiered as planned and quickly gained popularity fueled by enthusiastic reviews and the recent death of its composer. It proved extremely successful during its off-Broadway run, selling out