April 24 Benefit Celebrates Rent's 10th Bway Anniversary

A few days before the 10th anniversary of Rent, a benefit concert of the landmark Jonathan Larson musical will be held on April 24th at 6:45 PM at the Nederlander Theatre.

Proceeds will benefit the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation, Friends In Deed and the New York Theatre Workshop, where Rent first premiered off-Broadway. The benefit--which is billed as Rent 10--is likely to feature members of the original Broadway cast of Rent.

According to the NYTW website, tickets to the benefit are available by taking part in a lottery. "Please request an invitation only if you are interested in purchasing full price tickets which range from $1000 - $2000 each," it states. Those tickets include a post-performance dinner and dancing. "In keeping with Rent tradition, tickets for the first two rows of the theater will be available on the day of the event for $20 by lottery. There will be a total of 34 tickets, with a limit of two tickets per person. The lottery will be held on Monday, April 24 at the Nederlander Theatre (208 West 41 Street). Registration cards will be handed out beginning at 2pm for a drawing to take place at 3pm for that evening's benefit." Tickets, ranging from $500 to $2,500, were previously sold by invitation only.

In addition, fans unable to attend the benefit have the option of catching a performance of Rent for $20 the next day. On April 25th, beginning at 9 AM, all seats in the Nederlander Theatre will be sold at $20 for the evening's performance. The tickets, sold on a first-come, first-served basis, will be sold at the rate of two tickets per person (cash only). The regular lottery for April 25th has also been cancelled.

Rent will celebrate its 10th anniversary on April 29th. The musical opened on that date at the Nederlander in 1996 and starred Taye Diggs, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Jesse L. Martin, Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp (all of whom repeated their performances in the recent film version), as well as Daphne Rubin-Vega and Fredi Walker. Gilles Chiasson, Rodney Hicks, Kristen Lee Kelly, Aiko Nakasone, Timothy Britten Parker, Gwen Stewart and Byron Utley were also included in the original cast; all will likely be on hand for the benefit performance.

With its groundbreaking rock score by Larson and a story that captured the current of its generation, Rent is set in New York in the East Village, where a group of artists love and live La Vie Boheme even under the shadow of poverty, failure, illness and death. The La Boheme-based show won the Pultizer and the 1996 Tony Award for Best Musical, as well as 3 others. Tragically, Larson died a few months before the show opened. It has since run over 4,100 performances. The show is directed by Michael Greif and choreographed by Marlies Yearby, with musical direction by Tim Weil.

No line-ups for registration forms for the benefit's lottery will be allowed prior to 1 pm. Tickets must be paid for in cash. Twenty dollar tickets are for the benefit performance only and are only available by lottery—they are not available by phone or on the internet.
 
For more information, www.nytw.org. For more on Friends In Deed, visit www.friendsindeed.org, and for more on the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation, visit www.jlpaf.org.