Haha, your usertitle is too cool X3
Eee, okay! :D
RENT is a musical written in 1995 (ish) by Jonathan Larson. Larson himself died the very night the musical premiered, which is heartbreakingly sad. It ran on Broadway for 12 years, before finishing last week (7th September).
A movie version was made and directed by Chris Columbus and starred six of the original Broadway performers reprising their roles.
RENT tells the story of a group of bohemians living in a poverty-stricken area of New York City over the course of a year and tells of their relationships and struggles.
There are eight main characters (info taken from wiki):
Mark, a filmmaker, the narrator of the show and the person who creates a final movie which details his friends' lives and journeys throughout the story. Maureen's Ex, Roger's roommate.
Roger, an HIV-infected musician recovering from heroin addiction; his girlfriend April killed herself after finding out she had HIV; Mark's roommate and Mimi's love interest.
Collins, a gay philosophy teacher and anarchist with AIDS; friend and former roommate of Roger, Mark, Benny, and Maureen; Angel's lover.
Mimi, an HIV-positive exotic dancer and heroin junkie; Roger's love interest who used to be involved Benny.
Angel Dumott Schunard, a gay drag queen street percussionist/musician with AIDS; Collins' lover.
Joanne Jefferson, an Ivy League-educated lawyer; Maureen's lover; lesbian.
Maureen Johnson, a bisexual performance artist; Joanne's girlfriend; Mark's ex-girlfriend.
Benjamin "Benny" Coffin III, landlord of Mark, Roger and Mimi's apartment building; ex-roommate of Mark, Collins, Roger, and Maureen. Now married to Alison Grey of the Westport Greys and thus considered a yuppie sell-out.
Here's what they look like (minus Benny), a la Dannichu.
And the plot?
The play opens with Mark, annoyed at his lack of inspiration, resolving to film the life of him and his friends for the next year to see what he comes up with.
Roger, Mark and the rest of the people in the building then protest Benny charging them rent; he originally bought the building and let the homeless stay for free, but is now charging them to get money to build a new cyber studio.
Collins, an old friend of Mark and Roger, is attacked while waiting to be let into the building. He is beaten and left in an alley and discovered by Angel, who is performing nearby.
Roger meets up with Mimi (who lives in apartment below) and she flirts shamelessly with him, but after the suicide of his last girlfriend, Roger is nervous.
Collins meets up with Mark and Roger and introduces Angel, who gives the hungry bohemians food, money and alcohol, which he bought with money paid to him by a rich woman after he killed her neighbour's yappy dog.
Benny shows up and tells them that they can remain in the apartment rent-free if they can convince Maureen to stop her public protest, scheduled later that evening.
Shortly after, Maureen phones and asks Mark to come and help her with her equipment. Mark arrives at the performance space, but finds only Joanne, the woman Maureen left him for. The two eventually bond over how exasperating it is to date Maureen.
Collins and Angel attend a Life Support meeting for people with AIDS, which Mark interrupts.
Meanwhile, Mimi shows up at Roger's apartment and tries to seduce him, but he gets angry and scared; he doesn't want to get involved with her because he has HIV, while she does want to have a relationship with him because she wants to enjoy what time she has left. Eventually, he throws her out.
Roger goes into town to join the life support meeting and after the group leave, Collins sings about how preferable life in Santa Fe would be to being a starving bohemian in New York.
Mark leaves with Roger, trying to persuade him to watch Maureen's protest later, and Collins and Angel realize they've fallen in love.
Eventually, everyone shows up at Maureen's performance, but the show ends in a riot, which Mark records on his camera. He sells the footage to a news show and meets up with everyone else in the Life Cafe, where Benny and his investor are having dinner. Benny criticises them for their lifestyles and announces that "Bohemia is dead." The group then proceed to demonstrate how not dead bohemia is.
...and thus endeth act I. Act I is longer (and happier) than the second, which I dare not describe because of massive spoilers. But seriously, see if you can find it somewhere because it is just SO GOOD. :D
Aww, not getting paid sucks. So does having to volunteer is you want to graduate; that kinds takes the point out of volunteering, doesn't it? Still, it's good that you enjoy it :D
I'm leaving work tomorrow D:
We don't have any local anime conventions either; the one I normally go to is 6 hours train/coach/taxi journey away, and the one I'm planning to go to is in London, which is 6 hours journey on a good day.
My parents are cool about it, though; they don't know anything about anime and don't understand it at all (especially cosplaying XD), but they don't seem to care about us journeying miles away by ourselves to stay with complete strangers for half a week XD
Haha, you are cunning >D I don't have a computer mic; wish I did, though. It's make IMing much more interesting.
Facebook's really great for keeping in touch with people; I use it to see what people who I've met at anime cons are up to, and more recently to keep in touch with my old friends from school, now we're all going to different universities.
Oh, I'm not really creeped out or anything, you're both just really strange (in a good way, I promise XD).
Looooong.