Gaten Matarazzo will make his West End debut in Rent.
Luke Sheppard will direct the 30th anniversary revival.
10,000 tickets will be available at £35 and under.
The Stranger Things star will take on the role of Mark Cohen in a 30th anniversary revival at London’s Duke of York’s Theatre.
Gaten Matarazzo is heading to the West End. The American actor, best known for playing Dustin Henderson in Netflix’s Stranger Things, will star in a new London revival of Rent at the Duke of York’s Theatre. The production runs from 26 September 2026 to 13 February 2027, with the official opening night taking place on Thursday, 8 October 2026.
The 30th anniversary revival of Jonathan Larson’s landmark musical will be directed by Luke Sheppard, whose credits include Starlight Express and Paddington The Musical. The new West End staging is a larger-scale reimagining of Sheppard’s 2020 production at Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre, which was staged during the pandemic and gained strong attention from musical theatre fans.
Rent first opened on Broadway in 1996 and quickly became one of the defining musicals of its generation. Loosely inspired by Puccini’s La Bohème, the show follows a group of young artists living in New York’s East Village during the HIV and AIDS crisis. With songs such as “Seasons of Love,” “Light My Candle” and “Out Tonight,” it brought stories of friendship, queerness, illness, creativity and survival into the mainstream at a time when many of those experiences were still being pushed to the margins.
Matarazzo will play Mark Cohen, an aspiring documentary maker who observes and records the lives of his friends. While many audiences know him from Stranger Things, the 23-year-old is no stranger to the stage. His theatre credits include Sweeney Todd, Dear Evan Hansen, Godspell and Parade, making this West End debut a significant next step in a career that has already moved between television, Broadway and live performance.
The casting also brings a neat connection to producer Sonia Friedman, who was also involved with Stranger Things. For Rent, Friedman joins Chris Harper as co-producer, with further casting still to be announced.
Speaking about the musical’s relevance today, Sonia Friedman said: “This younger generation also finds a new resonance because the conditions that underpinned the original – even though, of course, we don’t have the catastrophe of HIV and AIDS – they’re being priced out of the city, they’re struggling to live. You’ve got chaos politically, and it feels like an urgent time for the young generation with their mental health and social media. This piece, even though it’s set then [in the 1990s], I think it’s going to feel so powerful, alive and urgent now.”
The revival arrives at a moment when London’s theatre scene continues to lean into star-led productions, but Rent carries a deeper cultural weight. Its themes of housing insecurity, chosen family, grief and artistic survival still feel sharply relevant, particularly for younger audiences navigating rising costs and uncertain futures.
Where: The Duke of York’s Theatre, St Martin’s Lane, London, WC2N 4BG
When: 26 September 2026 to 13 February 2027
Contact: www.thedukeofyorks.com