Larson’s most important work was the rock musical Rent. Rent weaves together the stories of struggling artists in New York City and a community endangered by the AIDS crisis, both of which were very personal motifs for Larson. Larson wanted to create a contemporary theater production that reflected real contemporary music. He believed bringing new music to Broadway would be his big break, or the chance for him to finally become a Pro-c creative. Throughout his life, Larson was never able to have his music as a career; he was forced to sustain himself through low-paying restaurant work. His creative compositions were not respected by the mainstream Broadway industry. Unfortunately, Larson never was able to become a professional creative. He died just days before Rent’s Broadway premiere. However, I would argue Larson became a Big-C creative years after his death. Larson received 3 posthumous Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Rent became the 11th longest running show in Broadway history. Larson’s work inspired 2 incredible films, Rent and tick, tick… BOOM!, the latter of which could become an Academy Award-winning film this year. Larson’s innovative work has inspired a multitude of modern composers and playwrights, including Lin-Manuel Miranda, and paved the way for a new genre of Broadway musicals. Jonathan Larson also has a collection in the Library of Congress, so his groundbreaking work can be viewed and studied for decades to come.
Sunday, February 27, 2022
Jonathan Larson: A Broadway Rockstar
Jonathan Larson was a composer, lyricist, and playwright.
Larson was creative from a young age. He was involved in musical theater in middle and high school. Larson was a mini-c creative during this time. Public school theater allowed him to learn the basics of piano, singing, and music performance. This time of personal creativity allowed Larson to grow an emotional attachment to the art of musical theater and allowed him to develop the skills needed to advance further in the field.
Larson studied acting at Adelphi University in New York. While in college, he began experimenting with composing his own music. He wrote the scores and lyrics for multiple small-scale college productions.
After college, he moved to Greenwich Village in New York City. Larson lived in relative poverty during this time. His music career did not take off after college, so he was forced to work at a diner to make ends meet. Larson was heavily influenced by the culture of Greenwich Village and by the life experiences of the struggling artists that lived there during the 1980s and ‘90s. Larson drafted several musicals during this time, but none of them were picked up by producers. The heartbreak of those failures and of the world rejecting his work inspired tick, tick… BOOM!, a semi autobiographical musical. Tick, tick… BOOM! was a one-man show with a rock band accompanying Larson. The music style was completely unique for Broadway at the time. The show also featured an homage to Stephen Sondheim, one of Larson’s biggest inspirations. Larson and Sondheim exchanged letters while Larson was still in college, and Sondheim occasionally reviewed Larson’s work. This collaboration was a huge source of inspiration and motivation for Larson, especially after repeated failures to make it big on Broadway.
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I watched the tick, tick, BOOM! film recently and found it very powerful, so I really enjoyed reading your post about him. It's incredible and heartbreaking to see how his work was so influential after his death. I think the fact that his writing incorporated struggles that affected his own life were an asset to his creativity and allowed his work to resonate with a large audience.
ReplyDeleteAs with Jonathan Larson, stories of creatives who rise to prominence or are only fully appreciated after their deaths always strikes a bittersweet chord. With Larson in particular, his death seems to be even larger of a loss because of how young he was and how the potential he possessed to create and inspire beyond "Rent" was lost. With these stories though, it is important to appreciate the creativity these individuals were able to share with us during their time on Earth and how their creativity was able inspire future creatives and the work they do.
ReplyDeleteAs someone with a complicated view of Rent and its themes, I really appreciated your examination of Larson's motivations and inspirations for this work. I heard that tick, tick...BOOM! was incredibly well done and it cannot be discounted that Larson's work inspired millions of minds. I did not know about Larson's passing before Rent's debut--it make me consider purely the creative mind behind Rent, rather than Rent itself. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI also watched Tick, Tick...BOOM recently, and I loved what a character study it was. You could see how much Larson was motivated creatively by the problems he saw with the world (like the AIDS crisis). In the film, you can see him crafting analogies as he conceives the concept of Rent for the first time. You picked an awesome person to write about!
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