Rent is a Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning rock musical, based upon Puccini's opera La Bohème. Rent opened in New York City on April 29, 1996 at the Nederlander Theater . The musical centers around a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive in New York's Alphabet City neighborhood under the shadow of AIDS. (In the opera, the disease was tuberculosis).

The score included the songs "Seasons of Love", "Rent (song)", "One Song Glory", "Light My Candle", "Tango: Maureen", "I'll Cover You", "Without You", "La Vie Boheme" and "Santa Fe." The resulting cast album from the show was the most successful recording of an American musical in almost 30 years, featuring both a 2-disc, 'complete recordings' collection and a 1-disc 'best of' highlights.

The musical was conceived by Jonathan Larson, a 35-year-old composer who died from an undiagnosed dissecting aortic aneurysm on January 25, 1996, just a few hours before the musical made its debut at the New York Theatre Workshop. It is believed that the defect resulted from Marfan syndrome.

At the time, Rent was rare among Broadway musicals in that it featured some of the first clearly gay and lesbian characters on stage. While a commonly-held stereotype is of a higher proportion of gay folk in theatre, almost every previous production which dealt with such issues had generally been relegated to Off-Broadway venues.

The original cast, as appeared in the Broadway production from April 16, 1996 through opening night and a little after, and the album recording, was as follows:

• Taye Diggs - Benjamin "Benny" Coffin III
• Wilson Jermaine Heredia - Angel Dumott Schunard
• Jesse L. Martin - Tom Collins
• Idina Menzel - Maureen Johnson
• Adam Pascal - Roger Davis
• Anthony Rapp - Mark Cohen
• Daphne Rubin-Vega - Mimi Marquez
• Fredi Walker - Joanne Jefferson
• Gilles Chiasson - Steve and others, Mark and Roger understudy
• Rodney Hicks - Paul and others, Benny understudy
• Kristen Lee Kelly - Mark's mom and others, Maureen understudy
• Aiko Nakasone - Alexi Darling and others
• Timothy Britten Parker - Gordon and others
• Gwen Stewart - Mrs. Jefferson and others
• Byron Utley - Mr. Jefferson and others, Collins understudy
• Yassmin Alers (Maureen and Mimi understudy), Darius de Haas (Angel, Collins, and Benny understudy), Shelley Dickinson (Joanne understudy), David Driver (Mark and Roger understudy), Mark Setlock (Angel understudy), Simone (Joanne and Mimi understudy) - swings

The musical Rent has been mentioned elsewhere in pop culture, including (but not limited to) cartoon Family Guy and being satirized in the 2004 movie Team America: World Police.

Due to the high popularity of the show, often before many performances at the venue in which the production is being staged the director(s) set aside a few rows up front for fans, local contest winners, etc. at a free or discounted rate.

Rent is scheduled to be made into a movie, which will be filmed in San Francisco and released sometime in 2005. Chris Columbus will be directing, with Diggs, Heredia, Martin, Menzel, Pascal and Rapp reprising their roles. Rosario Dawson has been cast for the role of Mimi.