Born and raised in the suburbs of New York City in the 1960s, Jonathan Larson grew up predisposed to a love of musical theater and the performing arts. He attended Adelphi University, where he was involved in writing new musical numbers as well as acting in various theater productions. After graduating college in 1982, Larson became a member of Actors’ Equity and moved into the city to pursue his passion for theater. However, there he experienced financial hardship, forcing him to work at a local diner in order to pay rent for his small heatless apartment. He began writing unique screenplays such as Superbia, The Evils of Ronald Reagan’s America (1987), and J.P. Morgan Saves the Nation (1995) with hopes of making it onto Broadway. Unfortunately, none of these titles gained any traction in the New York City theater world enough to become a Broadway production. Larson used the geneplore model of thinking in order to create a piece that would stick in the theater industry: after practicing divergent thinking in the initial creation of his works, Larson switched to convergent thinking to make a musical that adhered to the demands of the theater industry. Despite his determined attempts, Larson experienced a great amount of failure. In The Creative Spark, Agustín Fuentes claims that failure is vital in the creative process. Without hardship in the lives of early humans, they would not have been able to come up with effective tools and ways to survive. Through trial and error, creatives can better understand how to make a product that works and is useful in society. In 1989, Larson began to more seriously focus on an autobiographical work titled tick…tick…Boom!, through which Larson portrayed his career and love life challenges as well as his community of friends.
Jonathan Larson and Andrew Garfield, who played Larson in the 2021 movie rendition of tick…tick…Boom!
Larson was greatly impacted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, as he witnessed the physical decline of many of his close friends due to AIDS. During the creation of tick…tick…Boom!, Larson’s closest friend discovered that he was HIV positive. Eventually, Larson decided to create a play that focused on the AIDS crisis in New York City, which would later be titled Rent. Jonathan Larson and Billy Aronson worked together during the beginning stages of what is today Rent. Larson was originally inspired by Aronson’s vision of creating a musical highlighting the lives of poor artists on the Upper West Side. Ever the dominant and confident creator that he was, Larson insisted that the AIDS epidemic play into the friendship dynamics within the emerging musical. Larson’s passion and dedication for the project grew, eventually driving him to finish working on his and Aronson’s piece alone.
Larson wrote quickly and with conviction. His writing style involved the obsession and all-consumption with his projects, often causing his friends to view him as self-centered and arrogant. When he finished a new song, he often called to play it to his friends over the phone, even recording it on voicemail in a haste of creative inspiration if they did not pick up. Nonetheless, his dedicated creativity and artistic mind are most remembered of him.
Rent became the only musical written by Larson to eventually make its way to the Broadway stage. However, Larson never got to witness Rent’s immense success, as he tragically died of aortic dissection the night before Rent’s off-Broadway opening night.
Jonathan Larson next to a Rent promotional poster
Jonathan Larson was inspired to create musicals that incorporated elements of contemporary and rock music, which diverged from other theater productions at the time. He also intended to speak out about important topics in society, using his musicals as vehicles for change and awareness. Not only did Larson aim to provide viewers with an enjoyable experience, he also hoped to convey deeper messages about the world in which he lived.
Sources:
https://playbill.com/article/the-creation-of-rent-how-jonathan-larson-transformed-an-idea-into-a-groundbreaking-musical
https://www.sigtheatre.org/boheme/jonanthan-larsons-bio
Mia, before reading your post I knew nothing about Larson or the fact that Andrew Garfield was in such an influential piece of turning his work into a live action movie. I really like how you used Fuentes in your blog post. I couldn’t agree with you more, failure is an important part of the creative process and Larson exemplifies this throughout his life. Would you consider Larson to be a collector (in the context of our class) ?
ReplyDeleteI've never seen Rent, but your post made me interested in it! I find it interesting that many people seem to misunderstand creatives, like how Larson's friends thought him to be self-centered and arrogant when he was really just focused on his passion. I think it's a testament to how vastly different people's creative processes can look, and how they often don't make sense to those around them.
ReplyDeleteI literally thought about writing about Larson for this final blog because of Tick Tick Boom. I have loved Rent for years and it was such an important shift in what was thought of as a Broadway musical. To anyone who has not watched or listened to Rent, it is such an important piece of media to understand the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the late 1990s and understand how it affected marginalized communities. Larson's work is so important and it is a true tragedy that he was never able to see how much his work affected so many communities. He deserved a much longer life and to know how much is work helped to bring attention to HIV/AIDS.
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