 |
Adam Pascal
& Anthony Rapp
in Rent |
After a Broadway run of more than 12 years,
Rent has set a June 1 closing date. The landmark musical will have played 5,012 performances and 16 previews at the Nederlander Theatre upon closing, making it the seventh longest running show in Broadway history with a gross of more than $280 million, according to producers Jeffrey Seller, Kevin McCollum and Allan S. Gordon.
Written by Jonathan Larson and directed by Michael Greif, Rent opened on April 29, 1996, following a sold-out, extended limited engagement at off-Broadway's New York Theatre Workshop. The musical went on to win every major Best Musical award, including the Tony, and became one of only seven musicals to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Tragically, Larson did not live to see his show's success; he died of an aortic aneurysm on January 25 after Rent's final dress rehearsal at NYTW.
Rent launched the careers of a stellar group of young actors, including Taye Diggs, Wilson Jermaine Heredia (who won the show's only Tony for acting as Angel), Jesse L. Martin, Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp and Daphne Rubin-Vega. Many of the original cast re-created their roles in a feature film released in 2005. Rapp and Pascal returned to the show for a limited engagement last summer.
Inspired by Puccini's La Bohème, Rent tells the story of a group of young artists struggling in New York's East Village in the early 1990s and the obstacles they face, including AIDS, homelessness, poverty, lack of healthcare and homophobia. The show addresses issues that had not been touched on in musicals and became an immediate hit with audiences of all ages. But even its stronger supporters could not have predicted that Rent would run on Broadway for 12 years.