RENT is a Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning rock musical, with lyrics and music by Jonathan Larson (who died tragically on its opening night in 1996).  It debuted in New York City on February 13, 1996 at the New York Theatre Workshop before moving to Broadway, where it opened at the Nederlander Theatre on April 29, 1996.

Based on Puccini's opera La Boheme, the musical centres on a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York's Alphabet City in the early 1990s, under the shadow of AIDS. 

Synopsis

RENT was one of the first Broadway musicals to clearly feature gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender characters. It is also noted for its ethnically diverse cast, which includes many racial minorities in its ensemble and leading roles. RENT is considered revolutionary for bringing controversial topics and counterculture to a traditionally conservative medium and is credited with increasing the popularity of musical theatre in the younger generation.

Many critics have also mentioned how the show speaks to Generation X the same way that the musical HAIR spoke to the flower generation, calling it "a rock opera for our time, a 'HAIR' for the 90s".