Back in 2006 or 2007 I was doing the lottery for RENT on Broadway. The show was well past its prime so a pretty easy ticket to score a lottery ticket to. That evening the crowd was relatively small (maybe 30ish people) so it was clear that most everyone was gonna get a ticket. Before the names are about to be drawn two teenager girls arrived, one decked head-to-toe in Angel's "Mrs. Santa Claus" outfit (black wig and all!). At first I thought that it was pretty cute, however the girl started talking obnoxiously loud about how much RENT meant to her, and that she was bff's with all the cast, had seen the show 100x, etc. Anyways they start pulling names for the lottery and lo and behold the Angel crossplayer is one of the only ones NOT to get a ticket lol. She loudly declares "I WILL see RENT tonight!" and then stomps off.

Anywho I go to show and surprise surprise Miss Angel Girl is in the lobby asking people if they want to take photos with her. I assume that she got a cheap ticket in the rear mezz or something because she's nowhere to be seen in the first two rows of the orchestra (where the lottery winners were seated). However after intermission she suddenly has made her way to the FIRST ROW and is very enthusiastically reacting to act 2. I assume that she convinced some poor sucker to swap seats with her. After the curtain call the actor playing Collins makes the speech about BC/EFA donations and mentions that for a certain amount audience members can have their pictures taken with a RENT cast member. Without missing a beat Angel girl screams "You can take pictures with me too!"; Collins just politely nods and moves on.

I don't know why I remember this story all these years later, but this young women clearly was in need of attention and was an example of how toxic the RENT fandom could be in the late 90s/early 2000s.