Twenty-four seats in the boxes of the Richard Rodgers Theatre are going to a digital lottery for Rent, the 30th Anniversary Concert, at $30 each, with entries open until 2pm ET on Tuesday, October 20.
It is the only way left to see the one-night benefit in the room. Every other in-person ticket for the 8pm concert on Monday, October 26 has sold out, so the lottery's box seats are the last way into the theater; everyone else will be watching the livestream.
The mechanics are simple. Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS will notify winners by email, and each winner then has a limited window to buy up to two tickets at $30 apiece. The Broadway Cares page for the concert carries the link to enter, and also sells the livestream.
The lottery was the piece still missing when we covered the Gates Foundation's livestream match earlier this month, which doubles the donation from every stream ticket up to $525,600. At that point Broadway Cares had said only that a limited lottery would be announced; it now has its size, its price and its deadline.
The concert itself is a full staging of Jonathan Larson's musical rather than a revue, directed by Michael Greif, who staged the original, with original music director Tim Weil leading members of the 1996 band. Returning from the first company are Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Wilson Jermaine Heredia and Fredi Walker-Browne, among others, joined by later Rent alumni including Renée Elise Goldsberry, Aaron Tveit and Jordan Fisher. Proceeds go to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
