Pascal was a Tony Award nominee for playing the musician-songwriter who has muse issues. Both he and Rapp re-created their roles for the film version of the 1996 musical by late composer-lyricist-librettist Jonathan Larson.

Rapp plays young filmmaker Mark Cohen in the East Village-set show inspired by Puccini's La Boheme. The actors will be with the show for six weeks.

"American Idol" veteran Tamyra Gray is Roger's Mimi.

The musical is about love, friendship, creativity and connection in the age of AIDS. The musical won the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Among post-Rent gigs for the actors: Pascal (himself a musician-singer) would later appear in Broadway's Aida and Cabaret, and Rapp played the title character in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown on Broadway.

Both Pascal and Rapp appeared in the 1995-96 New York Theatre Workshop Off-Broadway production of Rent that was swept on a wave of praise to Broadway in 1996. Michael Greif directed.

Larson, the show's young composer-lyricist-librettist, died on the eve of the Off-Broadway bow. The cause was a then-undiagnosed heart ailment.

For more information about Broadway's Rent, visit www.siteforrent.com.