Official ‘Rent’ 30th anniversary benefit concert scheduled for October
The Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning rock musical Rent will return to Broadway for a special one-night-only gala concert to celebrate the show’s 30th anniversary. The performance is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.
The anniversary event will benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, with ViiV Healthcare serving as the presenting sponsor. Tickets and sponsorship packages will go on sale to the general public on Monday, June 1, at noon Eastern time through the official Broadway Cares website.
The full-show concert will be produced by Broadway Cares alongside Andy Jones, the founder of Baseline Theatrical. Jones began his theater career as part of the original management team for Rent.
Michael Greif, the show’s original director and a five-time Tony Award nominee, will return to direct the anniversary production. Original music director Tim Weil will also return to lead the original Rent band, which features musicians Kenny Brescia, Stephanie Mack, Jeff Potter, and Daniel A. Weiss. The performance lineup will feature original cast members alongside a star-studded selection of special guests to be announced in the coming weeks.
“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. “I know he’d be proud and honored to join forces with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS to celebrate the 30th year anniversary of his milestone musical.”
The event’s promotional poster art was developed by Naomi Mizusaki, the creator of the musical’s original advertisement, and Drew Hodges, who headed the original design team.
“I really wanted to make something that has the spirit of the original, something as disruptive as the first,” Hodges said. “That ad was as if the characters of Mark, Roger, Mimi, Angel, Collins, Maureen and Joann used a typewriter and Xerox machine to make their own ad. So, we thought about what poster those same characters would make for the 30th, and built it on top of that first ad.”
Originally produced by Jeffrey Seller, Kevin McCollum, and Allan S. Gordon, Jonathan Larson’s rock musical reimagines La Bohème in the East Village of New York City during the height of the AIDS epidemic. The show debuted at the New York Theatre Workshop before transferring to Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre in 1996, where it played 5,123 performances before closing on Sept. 7, 2008.
“Few works have captured the urgency, humanity and resilience of a generation like Rent,” said Danny Whitman, executive director of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. “Jonathan Larson provided a voice to communities and reminded us all of the power of compassion, care and showing up for one another.”
“Rent’s legacy is inseparable from the fight against HIV,” said Bithiah Lafontant, head of enterprise communications at ViiV Healthcare. “In the 30 years since the show premiered, advances in HIV treatment – including long‑acting injectables – have transformed what’s possible, but the epidemic is far from over.”
The anniversary gala is additionally supported by Dwight Curry, Mary Fisher, the John Gore Organization, The Nederlander Organization, and The Shubert Organization. Major donors within Broadway Cares’ Visionary Circle, Angels Circle, and NextGen Network were granted early ticket access starting May 12.
