The Rent story is replaying - that is, the young, photogenic composer of a small, very off-Broadway-scaled musical has died just before its premiere, leading to all sorts of interest, interest that, to be charitable, was probably not existent while the unfortunate composer was alive.

Let me first say that I know nothing of Ms. Wing or her music. But isn't it, technically at least, unfair, if not, in the end, understandable (I know I'm much more interested in her musical than I was a day ago), that she, out of God-knows how many aspiring composers and lyricists trying to break into the increasingly atrophied musical theater game should now succeed, simple because her tragic death has created a "story?" It's an odd confluence of luck, a vicious crash between the tragic and good (in a horrible sense) kind. Her musical, and name, will undoubtedly be much more remembered now than the odds say it would have been previously. But, of course, death is easily too high a price to pay for such "luck."

Until whenever.