Musical Today Rent turns thirty in a West End theatre that is changing its name
A musical about people who cannot make the rent is thirty years old, and is opening in a building that has just been renamed after a playwright. Both facts are about the same thing: what a theatre decides to keep.
The Tom Stoppard Theatre run
Rent begins previews on 28 September 2026 at the Tom Stoppard Theatre on St Martin’s Lane — the house that has been the Duke of York’s — and is booking to 27 March 2027. Performances run Monday to Saturday at 7.30pm, with 2.30pm matinees on Friday and Saturday. Tickets start at £31.
Who is in it
Gaten Matarazzo plays Mark Cohen in his West End debut, with Travis Ross as Roger, Bella Brown as Mimi, Billy Nevers as Collins, Jeevan Braich as Angel, Lazy Violet as Maureen, Danielle Fiamanya as Joanne and Joaquin Pedro Valdes as Benny.
Luke Sheppard directs, with choreography by Tom Jackson Greaves, set by David Woodhead, costumes by Gabriella Slade, lighting by Howard Hudson and sound by Paul Gatehouse.
The anniversary
Jonathan Larson’s show premiered in 1996, which makes this its thirtieth year. Thirty is the age at which a musical stops being revived because people remember it and starts being revived because they do not — the audience for this production was not alive for the first one.
A six-month booking period is the number to read here. West End productions of this kind are announced to a fixed date and extended if they sell; a booking window that closes on 27 March is a commitment to twenty-six weeks and an option on anything after that, which is why the honest advice for anyone planning a trip is to treat the March end date as real rather than assume an extension. The casting tells you who the production is aimed at: a lead known from television draws an audience that does not otherwise book plays, and that audience buys late and buys weekends. If you want a weekday in the first month at the £31 level, that is the window where a name-led show is least busy — previews before the reviews land, on nights the television audience is not free.
Source: London Theatre checked against the source
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