A new incarnation of Jonathan Larson’s “autobiographical rock monologue” tick…tick…BOOM! is now playing at the Westport Country Playhouse, once again helmed by its original off-Broadway director, Scott Schwartz. This musical is a poignant and hauntingly prophetic tale of the crisis of commitment for a struggling composer when he reaches a self-imposed deadline for achieving success by his 30th birthday. Through the words and the music, we hear Larson’s voice and get a glimpse into the inner life of an artist on the cusp of greatness, yet fearing that he will never achieve his life goals.
There is no doubt that Jonathan Larson was a unique talent who became the voice of a generation on Broadway with the production of his Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning Rent. What is not well known is that before the mega-success of Rent, Jonathan was working as a waiter in a New York diner by day, in order to spend the rest of his time composing what he hoped would be the ultimate Broadway experience for the MTV generation.
Jonathan had a single driving ambition to meld the worlds of rock and musical theater to reflect the tastes and times of the world he lived in. While he had some early achievements that were critically acclaimed but never fully produced, true success in musical theater eluded him until the New York Theatre Workshop brought his modern adaptation of La Bohème to life in 1996. Tragically, the night before his dreams were about to be realized with the opening of Rent, Larson died suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart aneurysm at the age of 35, cutting short a youthful and promising career.
It was during the composer’s salad days that he wrote and performed tick…tick…BOOM! It was written as a response to and release of the frustrations that Larson felt after the workshop staging of his play, SUPERBIA, which, though critically well received, was too unwieldy an operation for a full theater production. tick…tick…BOOM! was transformed after Larson’s death into a three-actor version which premiered off-Broadway in June of 2001, garnering seven Drama Desk Award nominations, and winning the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical.
Musically, tick…tick…BOOM! does not match the power of the score of Rent, yet the songs still resonate with real emotions and the uncompromising truth of the terror one faces when having to make life choices. They say that maturity lies in the ability to make decisions and live with the consequences. In tick…tick…BOOM!, we meet the main character, Jon, just before his 30th birthday. Jon hears the ticking, like a countdown before a catastrophic explosion, as he struggles to decide whether to stay a composer/waiter, sell out to the corporate world like his roommate, Michael, or settle down in domestic bliss with his girlfriend, Susan, in Cape Cod – away from Broadway and his dream of writing “Hair for the 90’s.”
Article comments
1 - Jeannie Danna
Cindy, It's nice to be visiting your comment thread!!
I wish we lived closer to NYC, Rick and I would love the theater.
What a tragic tale you have written here...
It's true, only the lucky get to be old :(
2 - cindyc
I think of Jonathan Larson's story as a tragedy mixed with triumph. Somehow, I think that he'd want his life to be celebrated more than mourned. But that is just me.
I am lucky enough to live near New York, but I cannot always take advantage of the distance for theater outings. Look for local theater, road shows and touring companies, and believe it or not, schools and theater camps. I will be running a series on local theater camps, who put on amazing productions. It is always a joy to see up and coming talent! And as always, a lot of local theater groups are non-profit and could use support through donations and ticket sales, especially in this economy! New York maybe the center of the universe, but there are satellites everywhere ;-)