Rent Extended

Due to ticket demand, Rent will not close on Broadway June 1, but will play to Sept. 7, the producers announced March 26.

Those who rushed out to buy tickets to Rent in anticipation of its announced closing have an option to attend later performances at the Nederlander Theatre. The final performance is now 6:30 PM Sept. 7. Ticketmaster.com indicates that tickets are on public sale to Sept. 4.

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Rent Era Coming To An End

From the tiny East Village theater where "Rent" was born, you can still catch a glimpse of the funky neighborhood where the hit musical was set - a scruffy courtyard, old brownstones, rusty pipes and fire escapes.

Even when "Rent" opened in 1996, the East Village was gentrifying. Well-heeled newcomers were moving in and rising rents were displacing the bohemians who inspired the show.


On June 1, after a dozen years, Broadway's seventh-longest running show is to become history, like the once-gritty neighborhood that's nearly gone as well.

"It was amazing to be living in the world you're playing on stage," says Anthony Rapp, an original cast member who lived in the East Village for many years and played the part of Mark, a budding filmmaker shooting a movie about his friends.

"Rent" was an instant sensation when it opened, dubbed an "exhilarating, landmark rock opera" by The New York Times, and when it moved to Broadway, The Associated Press said the show made the transfer with "all its raw energy, raucous musicality and radiant optimism intact."

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Rent's Broadway Run Ends In June

The award-winning Broadway musical "Rent" will end its 12-year-run in New York this June, according to an announcement on the production's Web site.

The musical, composed by Jonathan Larson, chronicles the struggles of a group of young artists in New York.

"Rent" won a raft of awards following its April 1996 Broadway debut, including a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, four Tony Awards and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical.

Larson never lived to see the success of "Rent," dying at age 36 of an undiagnosed heart condition on the eve of its pre-Broadway opening night at the New York Theater Workshop in January 1996.

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Source: Reuters