Original ‘Rent’ Cast Members to Reunite for 30th Anniversary Broadway Concert

Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp and other members of the original Broadway cast of “Rent” will return for a one-night anniversary concert on October 26 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York. 

The performance will present the full musical as a benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

Menzel, Pascal, Rapp, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Wilson Jermaine Heredia and Fredi Walker are among the original cast members returning to the roles they created. Yassmin Alers, Gilles Chiasson, Shelley Dickinson, David Driver, Darius de Haas and Rodney Hicks will also take part.

They will be joined by “Rent” alumni from later productions, including Jordan Fisher, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Aaron Tveit, Nicholas Christopher, Merle Dandridge, Ephraim Sykes and Antonique Smith. Organizers say additional cast members will be announced in the coming weeks.

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Michael Greif, who directed the original production, will direct the concert. Original music director Tim Weil will lead a band that includes original musicians Kenny Brescia, Jeff Potter and Daniel A. Weiss, alongside Steve Gelfand. Broadway Cares is producing the event with Andy Jones, founder of Baseline Theatrical and a former company manager of “Rent.”

“Jonathan wrote Rent in honor of the people he knew who were living and struggling with HIV and in honor of the many friends and contemporaries he lost to AIDS,” Greif said in a statement about the benefit. The concert will support Broadway Cares’ work for people living with HIV/AIDS and other serious illnesses.

After debuting at New York Theatre Workshop, “Rent” transferred to Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre in 1996. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for best musical, and its Broadway run ended in 2008 after 5,123 performances. 

For more information and additional details, theatergoers can visit BroadwayCares.org.