Artistic director Tracy Brigden has made City Theatre a player in the American theater by offering national talents a creative home-away-from-home, and there's no better example than the Rapps, Adam and Anthony.

City patrons might be excused if they confuse them, because the brothers are dauntingly multitalented; both even play in rock bands on the side. The playwright, novelist, screenwriter, filmmaker and obsessive basketball player is Adam, 40, who premiered both "Blackbird" (2002) and "Gompers" (2004) at City. But the Rapp of the moment is Anthony, 36 -- actor, composer, memoirist and now playwright of "Without You," premiering at City tonight through Sept. 21.

Anthony is best known as the original Mark, the earnest filmmaker who is one of the leads in the mold-breaking Broadway musical "Rent" (1996). At City, he starred as the cross-dressing title character in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" (2003) and returned to play a key ensemble role in his brother's "Gompers."

Then at City's MOMENTUM '06, he read selections from his just-published memoir, "Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss and the Musical 'Rent.' " So when theater colleagues urged him to adapt it into a stage piece, it was natural he would turn to City to provide a home for its premiere.

"We couldn't not do it," says Brigden. "Anthony is a unique and extraordinary performer, and now he's being introduced as a composer as well as writer. We're so proud he's entrusted us with his world premiere."

"Without You" is a one-man show about love and loss, featuring some of the music from "Rent" but also Rapp's own songs, performed with a four-piece onstage band. The personal story it tells begins in 1994, when Rapp was working at Starbucks and auditioned for Jonathan Larson's new rock opera, continuing through the tribute performance the night after Larson's tragic death and interweaving, as the press release says, Rapp's "achingly beautiful relationship with his mother during this turbulent time."

As Rapp was doing "Rent," the woman who had raised him, his brother and sister and had been, he says, "such a part of my artistic success," was dying of cancer back home in Joliet, Ill. During her last months, he made regular quick visits -- returning to sing "Seasons of Love" eight times a week on Broadway.

So his title, "Without You," works at least three ways. It refers to both his mother and Larson. But anyone who knows "Rent," an urgent rock version of the story of doomed love immortalized in Bizet's "La Boheme," will recognize it as the recurring motif of one of its most poignant love laments.

Like "Rent," it is self-reflexive. Larson wrote "Rent" partly to come to terms with his own grief, and he died right after its premiere, endowing it with his real-life tragedy. It's a conduit for grief, asking how we measure our lives. And it necessarily became that for the cast that experienced his death.

"Without You" takes all that and adds Rapp's own loss. He says the book and the show are attempts to be as truthful to his emotions as possible.

But he says, "I really only ever thought of it as a book." How could a 320-page memoir be pruned and adapted for the stage? Even his audio recording of it takes nine hours! But a young New York producer urged him to try.

So he enlisted Steve Mailer, who had directed him as "Henry V" in Boston (and who now directs "Without You" at City), who had the advantage of not knowing "Rent," allowing an objectivity in contrast to the obsession of its fans. He did the first rough prune of the memoir, focusing on the parallel stories of Larson and Rapp's mother.

That done, Rapp says he "took a carving knife to it" himself. The experience of "Hedwig," another passionate one-man show, had taught him a lot about autobiographical story-telling through song. The difference, of course, is that "Hedwig" was fiction and "Without You" is autobiography.

Last December, Rapp did a reading of the script in New York for an audience of theater people and friends, including "Rent" director Michael Grief, and was urged to go forward. But he had just finished doing 10 weeks back in the Broadway "Rent" and was booked to go out with original co-star Adam Pascal in the tour starting next January (the same tour that will play Pittsburgh April 14-19), so there wasn't a large window of opportunity.

He called Brigden, whom he and his brother have known since 1991, and she offered him a home for the premiere, creating a new mainstage slot before the start of the regular City season. Getting the rights to use musical excerpts from "Rent" wasn't difficult, given how close he is to the Larson family. And together with his long-time guitar player, David Mattos, he's written several new songs

As a performer, Rapp is a veteran, starting at age 9 when he played the title role in a professional "Oliver!" His three Broadway shows other than "Rent" include the title role in the 1999 revival of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown." He just finished Richard Nelson's "Some Americans Abroad" off-Broadway, and there's been much else. But oddly, although "Rent" has gotten him some work, it has also cost him -- he knows specifically of jobs he didn't get because the director thought his "Rent" fame would get in the way.

So he especially appreciated the chance to completely disappear into the "Hedwig" character. "Without You" couldn't be more different, since the role he disappears into is himself.