'Another Day' for Rent as Revival Readies for Off-Broadway Summer Bow

The first-ever revival of the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Rent will play off-Broadway at the New World Stages, according to the New York Post. The production, which will be helmed by Rent's original director Michael Greif, will begin peformances in June 2011. No casting has been announced, although the production will use new sets and an all-new cast.

Featuring a score and book by the late Jonathan Larson, Rent follows a group of young, eccentric New Yorkers as they struggle with love and loss during the height of the AIDS epidemic. The show first premiered off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop on January 26, 1996. The musical then transfered to the Nederlander Theatre on April 29, 1996 where it ran for 12 years before closing on September 7, 2008.

With 5,123 performances Rent ranks as Broadway's ninth longest running show. In 2005 a film adaptation was released directed by Chris Columbus and featuring original cast members including Idina Menzel, Anthony Rapp, Taye Diggs, Adam Pascal, Jesse L. Martin and Wilson Jermaine Heredia.

Rent will follow the example set by two other Broadway hits, Avenue Q and The 39 Steps, that found fresh life at New World Stages. Both are still running at the off-Broadway venue.