Hayes Theatre Co. Sets Cast of RENT

There's no day like today for Highway Run Productions in association with Hayes Theatre Co to announce the hugely anticipated cast line up of upcoming 1990's cult musical RENT playing from October 8 at the Hayes Theatre Co.

Director Shaun Rennie and musical director Andrew Worboys have assembled some of Australia's finest singer/actors for this production of the award winning musical. Stephen Madsen (Heathers The Musical) plays the role of Mark, a struggling documentary filmmaker and best friend of Roger, an HIV-positive musician who is recovering from heroin addiction played by Linden Furnell, who is making his Australian musical theatre debut. Loren Hunter (Strictly Ballroom, King Kong) is Mimi, an HIV-positive stripper and dancer who is also a heroin junkie and Roger's love interest. Laura Bunting (The Voice, Wicked) plays spunky performance artist Maureen, who is Mark's ex-girlfriend and current girlfriend of Joanne, a tough, headstrong Harvard-educated lawyer played by one of Australia's most celebrated female indigenous stage and screen stars, Casey Donovan (The Sapphires, Flowerchildren). Collins, the HIV-positive philosophy teacher, friend and former roommate of Roger, Mark, and Maureen is played by Nana Matapule. Chris Scalzo (Dr Zhivago, Wicked) has been cast in the role of Angel, an HIV-positive drag queen with a heart of gold and Collins' love interest. Benny, played by Matthew Pearce (Home and Away), is the former friend and landlord of Mark, Roger and Mimi's apartment.

Completing the cast are Denise Devlin, Josh Gardiner, Jack O'Riley, Monique Sallé, Kirsty Sturgess and Chloe Wilson.

The East Village is dead. At the dawn of the 1990s, New York City's East Village is home to an ever-diminishing bohemian community. Development pushes people from their borough, disease withers loved ones from their lives, and a group of friends fight for their place in the face of such quiet vanishing. One iconic city, one life-changing year, one astonishing masterpiece: RENT.

Jonathan Larson's RENT opened Off-Broadway in 1996 and quickly became a global phenomenon. The show earned Larson multiple Tony Awards along with a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, a distinction not received again by a music theatre work until 14 years later. Though Larson himself never saw the impact of his masterwork - he died suddenly in the early hours of the very day the show opened to the public - its longevity serves as a testament to the emotional resonance of Larson's creation and an embodiment of its ever-present message: "no day but today".

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