Rent

Don't expect those at the New York Theatre Workshop to see the humor in this sad coincidence: they're going to have a hard time paying rent because the Broadway run of Rent closed down. The workshop, a 25-year-old East Village mainstay in Off-Broadway theater, is cutting down its budget from $4.5 million to $3.5 million, partially because of the closing of Rent, which premiered at the workshop in 1996 and has been sending royalties to the company ever since. Six production staff will be laid off starting May 30 and replaced with temps.  read more »

Rent stars Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp will reprise their original Broadway (and film) roles in a 2009 national tour of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning Jonathan Larson musical, which will begin in January, according to Playbill. Rent is due to end its 11-year run on June 1 at the Nederlander Theatre. Mr. Pascal and Mr. Rapp originated the roles of Roger Davis and Mark Cohen at the New York Theatre Workshop, on Broadway. In Entertainment Weekly, the actors reminisced about working Mr. Larson's musical before it became a smash hit.

Anthony Rapp, Mark: I was working in a Starbucks on the Upper East Side. I hadn't done a musical in years, and I went in and auditioned for this Off Broadway rock opera — and that phrase, admittedly, didn't fill me with a tremendous amount of confidence.  read more »

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After a year of dismal ticket sales, Rent is due to close on June 1. (We'll have to settle for Spring Awakening.) The show has been staged for 12 years at the Nederlander theater, the seventh-longest running show in Rialto history.  read more »