The revival marks 30 years since RENT premiered on Broadway and arrives in the West End with director Luke Sheppard at the helm.
Gaten Matarazzo rose to international fame as Dustin Henderson in the Netflix series Stranger Things, a role that earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award.
He most recently played Tobias in the acclaimed Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.
His other Broadway credits include Jared Kleinman in Dear Evan Hansen at the Music Box Theatre, Jesus in Godspell at Circle in the Square and Frankie Epps in Parade at New York City Center. He also appeared as Jack in Into the Woods at the Hollywood Bowl.
Further casting will be announced soon.
Set in New York’s East Village, RENT follows a group of young artists, musicians and friends as they navigate love, ambition and creativity while trying to build lives on their own terms. Inspired by Puccini’s La Bohème, the show captures the joy, uncertainty and resilience of a generation determined to make every moment count.
With an unforgettable rock score and a story that still resonates three decades after its premiere, RENT is a celebration of community, connection and a call to live every minute as if it were your last. No day but today.
RENT features music, lyrics and book by Jonathan Larson. The London production is directed by Luke Sheppard with choreography by Tom Jackson Greaves.
The creative team includes set design by David Woodhead, costume design by Gabriella Slade, lighting design by Howard Hudson, sound design and audio production by Paul Gatehouse, video design and cinematography by George Reeve and Nathan Amzi, and make-up and hair design by Jackie Saundercock.
UK casting is by Pearson Casting CSA CDG CDA and US casting is by Jim Carnahan CSA. The musical supervisor is Bill Sherman, the musical director and associate musical supervisor is Katy Richardson, the intimacy director is Asha Jennings-Grant, the associate director is Priya Patel Appleby and the dialect coach is Joe Trill.
Captioned performance: Thursday 12 November 2026 at 7:30pm
Audio described performance: Saturday 21 November 2026 at 2:30pm
BSL interpreted performance: Saturday 28 November 2026 at 2:30pm
Jonathan Larson (1960 to 1996) was an American composer, lyricist and playwright best known for the groundbreaking rock musical RENT, which won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Musical. Loosely based on Puccini’s La Bohème, RENT premiered at New York Theatre Workshop on 13 February 1996, ran on Broadway for 12 years and was later adapted into a 2005 feature film directed by Chris Columbus and a 2019 live FOX television production by Marc Platt.
Earlier in his career, Larson received the Stephen Sondheim Award in 1989, the Richard Rodgers Development Grant in 1990 for his rock musical Superbia at Playwrights Horizons, and the Richard Rodgers Award in 1994 for RENT. He also composed J.P. Morgan Saves the Nation in 1995 and the autobiographical rock monologue tick, tick… BOOM!, which was later restaged off-Broadway in a three-person adaptation by David Auburn and turned into a 2021 Netflix film directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Larson died unexpectedly from an aortic aneurysm on 25 January 1996, just ten days before his 36th birthday and on the eve of RENT’s first preview. His legacy continues through his works and through the Jonathan Larson Foundation, administered by the American Theatre Wing, which supports emerging musical theatre artists. In 2025, The Jonathan Larson Project, featuring his previously unheard works, was produced off-Broadway at the Orpheum Theatre.
