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Just in time for Mayor Zohran Mamdani's pied-a-terre tax, a one-night-only concert of Rent is headed to Broadway, according to a report from BroadwayWorld.
The outlet reports that the 30th anniversary concert of Jonathan Larson's Pulitzer Prize-winning (and paradigm-shifting) musical will take place at a Broadway theater yet to be announced, with original music director Tim Weil returning to the keys alongside the full original Rent band.
First opening on Broadway in 1996 at the Nederlander Theatre, Rent went on to become a cultural phenomenon, becoming one of just a handful of musicals to win both the Pulitzer and the Tony Award for Best Musical. The show—which launched the careers of Taye Diggs, Idina Menzel, Anthony Rapp and others—ended up running for 12 years.
The rock musical follows a group of artists and friends navigating love, loss and community in New York City’s East Village during the height of the AIDS crisis. Its score, packed with now-classic songs like “Seasons of Love” and “La Vie Bohème,” helped redefine what Broadway could sound and feel like, especially for younger audiences.
While casting and exact dates for the concert have not yet been revealed, the involvement of the original band signals a dedication to the OG production that bodes well, echoing past milestone celebrations like a 2006 one-night reunion of the original Broadway cast.
This summer will also see the musical return to New York stages in a more traditional manner, when EPIC Players premieres its revival featuring a cast of neurodiverse and disabled performers, according to Playbill. Directed by Travis Burbee, the production runs June 4–14 at A.R.T./New York Theatres.
The cast includes Eric Fegan as Mark, Conor Tague as Roger, Genesis Solivan as Mimi, Jocelyn Elena Stout as Maureen, Lai Williams as Joanne, Joshua Cartagena as Angel, Cameron Walker as Collins and Hunter Hollingsworth as Benny.
The concert and revival both arrive amid a broader resurgence of interest in Rent as it hits the three-decade mark, with new productions and reinterpretations popping up around the country. Not that the musical ever really went away. While the show was still on Broadway, a movie musical directed by Chris Columbus hit theaters with most of its original cast intact. In 2011, an Off-Broadway revival opened, while the show got the live musical treatment on Fox in 2019.
Tickets, venue details and additional casting announcements for the one-night-only concert are expected to be announced soon.