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Upper St. Clair native Stephen Chbosky, 35, who wrote the screenplay for the movie musical "Rent," visited the film set for the first of five times while the picture was in production from March to June.

"They were shooting the song 'Rent,' and I will never forget that three years earlier I was sitting in my apartment in Brooklyn writing the screenplay version of that song and describing what everybody was doing and how we should go outside, and the end of the song will become a rent strike, and everyone will be screaming, 'We're not gonna pay.'

"To show up on the set and see 400 people working on that was a true highlight for me. That was a great experience."

The movie is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony Award-winning Broadway musical "Rent" by Jonathan Larson, who died of an aneurysm the night of the final dress rehearsal before the show debuted off-Broadway en route to Broadway.

Chbosky was no part of the stage version except for seeing it once.

But we're getting ahead of our story.

The son of Fred and Lea Chbosky of Upper St. Clair, Stephen Chbosky graduated from Upper St. Clair High School and earned his BFA from a screenwriting program at the University of Southern California.

"I wrote a screenplay the senior year that won some awards. I sent it around. I only got six replies out of 30, and I was too young to know that was really good."

He wrote and directed "The Four Corners of Nowhere" (1995), which he made with friends and which was shown theatrically in about six major cities, but not here, and at about 20 festivals internationally. It became one of the first movies shown on the Sundance Channel.

"It got me into the Sundance Film Festival, and it got me my first agent, and I've working professionally at writing since," says Chbosky, who lives in Los Angeles.

Chbosky co-wrote with Bill Russell the book of the musical "Kept," did a screenplay based on the novel "Audrey Hepburn's Neck," which is in the hands of the Samuel Goldwyn Co., and wrote a novel called "The Perks of Being a Wallflower."

He also co-wrote with director Jon Sherman a screenplay for Michael Chabon's novel "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh."

Unproduced projects sometimes spring to life on the coattails of other pictures. "Rent" could open doors.

Chbosky saw the musical once during the nine years he lived in New York.

"I really loved the show and had some ideas about how to make it into a movie. I was young, hungry and cheap, and they liked my ideas."

He had access to the stage version's book?

"Absolutely. Jonathan Larson's family and friends are incredibly nice, kind and supportive people. I had access to everything he'd written."

Typically for a screenwriter of a musical, part of the challenge was writing the transitions into songs.

"My personal favorite dramatic movie musical has to be 'Cabaret.' In 'Cabaret' there is no song that is not motivated by the real world; you can believe all the songs. 'Rent' does not work in exactly that way.

"I would try to make the transitions as naturalistic as possible. I thought, 'When Mimi sings "Out Tonight," she should be at the strip club where she works.' I added those things. We focused on cutting the exposition songs where people are talking to each other. Some we kept -- 'Light My Candle' and 'I'll Cover You.' Since we see the loft and the characters, we didn't need all of the songs."

Although some songs were jettisoned, none was added.

"Nobody involved ever thought of bringing in someone to write new songs. The decision was to use what was already in the show and take things out in a strategic way to make the best songs come alive."

Chbosky had a lunch with Jay Presson Allen, who wrote the screenplay for "Cabaret."

"She was incredibly helpful to me."

And although they did not meet, Chbosky watched as Warren Beatty participated in a standing ovation at a recent Los Angeles-area screening of "Rent."

"The self-proclaimed Rentheads I've met at screenings have really loved it."

One of the many projects Chbosky is working on -- but strictly on his own, not as a hired screenwriter -- is an adaptation of his novel "The Perks of Being a Wallflower."

"There are half a million copies of the novel in print. If you have something that already means something to people, they're a little more interested. Imagine trying to get the movie 'Rent' made if the show didn't exist."

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