Jonathan Larson's gritty, urban musical "Rent" makes a homecoming, of sorts, to San Diego this week, with the national touring production playing through Oct. 3 at the San Diego Civic Theatre.

The 1996 musical was directed by Michael Greif, then-artistic director of the La Jolla Playhouse, and Greif launched the show's first national tour in 1997 with a record-breaking La Jolla run. Since then, touring companies of "Rent" have returned to San Diego every couple of years.

The current touring production, also directed by Greif, is better than the one that visited town two years ago. Exuberant performances, energetic (if raunchy) choreography and an earnest, youthful cast continue to make the show an ideal magnet for the 20-something "Rentheads" who camp outside the theater at each tour stop and cheer enthusiastically from the $20 front-row seats.

"Rent" is set in New York's AIDS and drug-riddled East Village in the mid-1990s. Its Generation X bohemian characters include a heroin addict/exotic dancer, a lesbian performance artist and an HIV-positive drag queen.

"Rent" won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for drama, four Tony Awards and more than a dozen other top honors, but what it's perhaps best known for is its sad birthing. Larson, who spent seven years writing the book, score and lyrics for "Rent," dropped dead from a brain aneurysm just one day before the musical was to have its first performance before a live audience in March 1996. His sudden death, at just 35, ironically underscored the musical's underlying message: to live for the moment -- for it may be your last.

"Rent" is loosely based upon Giacomo Puccini's 1896 opera "La Boheme," about a group of starving artists in early 19th-century Paris. Larson borrowed many of the characters and key scenes from "La Boheme" but changed them radically. The poet Rodolfo becomes Roger, an HIV-positive rock musician whose girlfriend has committed suicide. The shy, tubercular seamstress Mimi becomes an HIV-positive junkie who dances at a strip club to support her heroin habit. They fall in love not when Mimi drops a key in Rodolfo's apartment, but when the new Mimi drops a bag of smack. Rodolfo's painter friend Marcello becomes Mark, a documentary filmmaker whose performance artist girlfriend, Maureen (Musetta in the original "La Boheme"), has dumped him for a lesbian lover, Joanne. And the men's platonic roommates in "La Boheme," Colline and Shaunard, become gay lovers Tom Collins, an HIV-positive philosophy professor, and Angel Shunard, a drag queen/street drummer dying of AIDS. In "Rent," these artists are struggling to pay their rent and are facing homelessness when their yuppie landlord decides to turn the

apartment building into a cyber-arts complex.

Standout performances in the current tour are lovable Andy Meeks as nerdy videographer, Mark; golden-throated Marcus Paul James as Tom Collins; and Ava (who uses only one name) as the intentionally bad performance artist, Maureen. Also entertaining are Adrienne Fishe as Maureen's attorney girlfriend, Joanne, and Damien DeShaun Smith as the cross-dressing Angel.

Playing lovers Roger and Mimi are Dan Rosenbaum and Tallia Brinson. Rosenbaum is a meatier, huskier Mark than usual and has strong singing chops. Brinson can move like an exotic dancer and has the right aggressive personality, though her vocals were a bit off the night I attended.

The musical's choreography, particularly in the first act-closer "La Vie Boheme," has been sexed up and is not suited for children. But it's great fun to watch and the ensemble numbers are thrilling.

"Rent" runs two hours, 30 minutes, with intermission.