REDDITCH actor James Edge is to star alongside an original cast in an exclusive five night run of the Broadway smash hit musical Rent as it celebrates its 20th anniversary.
James, who trained at the Birmingham School of Acting, plays ‘Benny’ – the landlord, Benjamin Coffin III in the rock musical, which is loosely based on Puccini’s La Boheme.
Jonathan Larson’s exuberant East Village version of the opera classic is a winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Larson’s stirring and life-affirming score captures the heart and spirit of a generation of struggling artists, addicts, and impoverished young people living in the shadow of Aids and battling the coming wave of gentrification.
It’s a time capsule of a world where hope crawls out of dark despair, where Bohemians can find the salvation of love within each other and prove there can be a better world where art thrives, and everything good is free.
Over the course of the production’s 12-year engagement on Broadway, which ended on September 8 2008, there will have been more than 5,000 performances, making Rent the seventh-longest-running Broadway show in history.
Rent plays at The Old Rep Theatre from Tuesday to Saturday July 26-30.
Tickets are available at www.rentthemusical.co.uk or via The Old Rep box office on 0121 359 9444.
