'Rent' musical celebrates its 30th Broadway anniversary with a starry
show: 'No day but today'
[October 24, 2026]
By MARK KENNEDY
NEW YORK (AP) — Jordan Fisher was in middle school when he first heard
it. He was at his first cast party, gathering with fellow performers
around his drama teacher's piano after some community theater.
The song everyone was singing was about living life and measuring life,
and there were a bunch of weird numbers — like 525,600. He wouldn't be
the same after hearing it.
“I was like, ‘What is this?’” recalls Fisher. “That shifted things for
me. I don’t think I’ll ever really be able to put a finger on it other
than the fact that it was something that was supposed to happen.”
That song was, of course, the barn-burning Act 2 opener “Seasons of
Love” from the landmark rock musical “Rent,” now celebrating its 30th
anniversary of storming Broadway.
“'Rent' hit me. It just did,” says Fisher.
He's joining an astonishing list of Broadway's who's-who to celebrate
the milestone Monday with a benefit performance of the show from the
Richard Rodgers Theatre.
Stars from Broadway and beyond
Original cast members returning to their old roles include Tony-winner
Idina Menzel, Tony-nominee Adam Pascal, Tony-nominee Daphne Rubin-Vega,
Tony-winner Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Fredi Walker, Taye Diggs and
Anthony Rapp.
Other “Rent” alumni include Tony-winner Natalie Venetia Belcon,
Tony-nominee Nicholas Christopher , Tracie Thoms, Jose Llana,
Tony-nominee Ephraim Sykes and Tony-winner Aaron Tveit.
Some Broadway celebs scheduled to take part include Tony-winner Neil
Patrick Harris, Rachel Zegler, Tony-winner Norbert Leo Butz,
Tony-nominee Will Chase, Telly Leung and Christopher J. Hanke. Fisher
jokingly calls it “'Rent'-cella,” after Coachella.
Seats have been snapped up, but $30 livestream tickets are available.
The stream will be accessible for 24 hours following the performance and
proceeds go to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
“It’s rare that a show has a life like this and is still exciting and
inspirational enough to have a 30th festival, if you will. It’s a
really, really special thing,” says Fisher.
‘Rent’ was a phenomenon
Jonathan Larson’s tale of free-spirited artists and street people in New
York’s gritty drug- and AIDS-plagued East Village of the early 1990s was
inspired by Puccini’s “La Boheme” and found a ready-made audience in
young people, as it still does.
“He believed that going to musical theater didn’t just have to be an
escape. It didn’t have to just be looking at phantoms and things that
happened hundreds of years ago. It could be about the life we’re living
right now,” says Rapp.
Rapp says it's appropriate that ticket sales will go to Broadway
Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, which has been offering meals, medication and
healthcare to artists since the 1980s. “They can help make a difference
to help people get direct aid and direct support in communities around
the country.”
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The original cast of "Rent" appears on stage at the 62nd Annual Tony
Awards in New York, Sunday, June 15, 2008. (AP Photo/Jeff
Christensen, File)
 Rapp, who originated the role of the
scarf-wearing Mark Cohen, was part of the workshop for the
off-Broadway production and knew there was something special, if
raw, in the fledgling show. “The soul of it was so powerfully
there,” he recalls.
He also recalls hearing “Seasons of Love” — with its famous line
“525,600 minutes/How do you measure a year in the life?” — for the
first time when the cast, musical director Tim Weil and director
Michael Greif gathered around a piano.
“I’ve never heard a song like it and certainly not in theater,” Rapp
says. “We all leaned forward. Every single element of it was so
etched deeply into my soul and my memory.”
He predicted the show might make a splash, but a smallish one: “I
meant like the way that off-Broadway things over in the corner could
make a bit of a splash and have some energy around it, but certainly
never anticipated mainstream and never anticipated Broadway.”
The ripple effects of ‘Rent’
Rapp sees the rock and defiant snarl from “Rent” in the DNA of such
shows as “Hadestown,” “Spring Awakening,” “Next to Normal,” “Dear
Evan Hansen” and “Hamilton.”
“When you break a dam open, water rushes through. It’s like that,”
he says. “Now, there’s a whole new universe of shows that have
followed in our footsteps because we broke down the dam that seemed
unbreakable.”
“Rent” won Tony Awards for best musical, score and book and a
Pulitzer Prize. It lasted on Broadway for 12 years and more than
5,000 performances, launching the careers of its young original
cast.
There was a 2005 film version, multiple tours, an off-Broadway
revival, international productions, a Hollywood Bowl concert and a
live staging on Fox in 2019, which starred Fisher in Rapp's old
role.
Larson never lived to see his triumph: He died at age 35 of an
aortic aneurysm after its final off-Broadway dress rehearsal in
January 1996.
“The torch has been passed and carried by so many incredible artists
over the years,” says Rapp. “I think it would thrill Jonathan Larson
so much to know that so many wonderful human beings came through and
kept his work alive and that they want to come back and celebrate
it.”
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