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“Rent” didn’t reach acclaim just because its creator, Jonathan Larson, spent seven years toiling over the musical and died the night before it opened. He was just 35.

It became massively popular — so popular it moved to a Broadway theater within months — because it was explosive, innovative, thrilling, witty, heartbreaking and outrageously fun.

And Arizona Repertory Theatre brings its version of the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical to the stage next week.

Here are three of many reasons why you want to go.

1. The story:

Larson took the “La Bohème” story about Parisian bohemians from the 1800s and put them smack dab in the middle of New York City’s modern day East Village. Like the opera, “Rent” is the story of poor young artists. Instead of tuberculosis — the plague that stalked Puccini’s characters — it is HIV/AIDS that the artists in “Rent” must deal with. The play follows a year in the lives of friends living in the heatless loft of a rundown building. They face love, loyalty, disease and loss.

2. The music:

The story is raw and gritty. And the music is exhilarating. Songs such as “Light My Candle,” “Rent,” “Seasons of Love” and so many more swirl around in your head long after you’re heard them. And in a good way.

3. The director:

Danny Gurwin, an assistant professor of musical theater at the UA, is at the helm. Gurwin has a hefty resume, which includes gigs on and off Broadway and in regional theaters — heck, he even had a guest appearance on “Desperate Housewives.” But it is the work he has done with the talented UA theater students that has impressed us most. Among the shows he has shaped at the school are “Cabaret,” “The Fantasticks” and “Oklahoma.” We suspect he’ll impress us just as much with “Rent.”