Rent Rejigged for New West End Run???

The Ambassador Theatre Group plans to return Rent to the West End in a new version given more “street edge” care of Kylie Minogue’s former stylist and creative director William Baker. Last week, ATG producer Andrew Empson and casting director Neil Rutherford dropped in on the ten-strong company of Channel 4’s reality TV programme Musicool, who debut their new musical this weekend (See Today’s News), with a view to potentially casting some of the group’s untrained and unsigned talent. No word yet on whether any of them got the job! First seen in New York in 1996, Rent received its West End premiere at the Shaftesbury Theatre on 12 May 1998 and closed on 30 October 1999 after a run of 18 months. It has since toured the UK extensively and had two limited West End return seasons, the last in 2005/6 when supermodel Caprice starred (See News, 18 Nov 2002). Inspired by Puccini's La Bohême, Larson's original musical updated the plot to 1990s New York where a community of East End squatters battled to fulfil their aspirations against the reality of rent demands and Aids. The death of 35-year-old creator and composer Larson, who died of an aortic aneurysm shortly after the final dress rehearsal of Rent's debut, transformed the musical into a cause celebre in New York, where it’s still running. Back in London, we hear that ATG is lining its new Rent up for the main house at Trafalgar Studios, which it owns. Running it in this intimate 400-seater would definite give the musical a much different feel to previous incarnations.

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