Cuba to stage Rent, first Broadway musical in 50 years 25 November 2014 Last updated at 12:05 Cuba will host its first Broadway show in more than 50 years when the award-winning musical Rent comes to Havana in December. Broadway producers, who announced the three-month run, said they have been trying for several years to stage a full production in the country. US musicals have been banned since Fidel Castro's revolution in 1959. The Cuban National Council of Performing Arts said it was a "paramount step" for musical theatre. The production, about a group of struggling artists in New York, will feature a cast of 15 Cuban actors. It will be led by Cuban-American director Andy Senor Jr, who made his professional debut as Angel in the original show on Broadway. Nederlander Entertainment, one of the biggest theatre producers in the US, will produce the show in conjunction with Cuba's National Council of Performing Arts at Havana's Bertolt Brecht Theatre. Founder Robert Nederlander Jr said he was honoured to be a "bridge between the Cuban cultural and Broadway communities." Rent, which opened in New York in 1996, won four Tony awards and a Pulitzer Prize for drama during its Broadway run. Loosely based on Puccini's opera La Boheme, the show opened in London in May 1998 and ran for 18 months.