Jonathan Larson
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Jonathan Larson ~ RENT
(February 4, 1960 – January 25, 1996)
Composer-lyricist-librettist of RENT, a rock opera inspired by “La Bohиme”, Jonathan Larson was born in Mt. Vernon, New York, and raised in suburban White Plains, the second child of Allan and Nanette Larson. Both Jonathans parents loved music and theatre, and show tunes and folk music were always playing in their home. Jon and his sister Julie took piano lessons during elementary school. He could play by ear, and his teacher encouraged him to experiment with rhythm, harmony, and setting words. By high school, he was called the “Piano Man” after the enormously popular song of that title by Billy Joel; he also played tuba in the school marching band. Active in school and community theatre, Jonathan had major roles in several musicals.
In 1978, Jonathan entered the acting conservatory at Adelphi University with a four-year full-tuition merit scholarship. He told an interviewer in 1993 that the program was “an undergrad version of the Yale Rep [the theatre where students of the Yale School of Drama work alongside veteran professionals]. And I was serious enough about theatre to know that this was what I wanted to do.” He earned his Equity card doing summer stock and received a BFA with honors in 1982.
His favorite part of the Adelphi curriculum was the original political cabarets. With classmates, Larson wrote rock-flavored attacks on the New Christian Right, Reaganomics, and the mind-numbing effects of television. He also scored EL LIBRO DE BUENAMOR (1979) and THE STEAK TARTARE CAPER (1981), musicals with lyrics and libretti by faculty members. He had a knack for pastiche and for complex ensemble numbers that used themes in counterpoint.
In class, Jonathan studied the theatre of Bertolt Brecht and Peter Brook. Among his musical influences were JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, the Beatles, Prince, and the Police, but the writer he admired most was Stephen Sondheim, to whom he wrote during his last year in college. The distinguished composer-lyricist answered him and became an adviser to the young songwriter.
After graduation, Jonathan moved to Manhattan, went on acting auditions, performed in a nightclub trio, and composed songs for a musical version of Rudyard Kiplings “Jungle Books”. In 1982 he adapted George Orwells “1984” for the musical stage. Deeply affected by the novel, and unflappably confident, he completed book, music, and lyrics, recorded a demo tape, sent a script to director Harold Prince, and wrote to Orwells estate. The theatrical rights were unfortunately not available. “So all the work that I had done on that transmogrified into SUPERBIA, which was my own dystopia.”
In the earliest drafts of SUPERBIA, a young man with a music box wants to wake up an emotionally numb futuristic society. In later drafts, the hero never gets a chance to make his point. This shift seems to echo Jonathans own experience with mounting a new musical. During the SUPERBIA years, 1985-1991, Larson was chosen for ASCAP and Dramatist Guild development workshops. He lived on the edge of poverty, preferring to work as a waiter rather than divide his concentration with jingle- or copywriting. Organized and disciplined, he revised draft after draft of SUPERBIA and submitted material to scores of regional theatres. In 1988 he won a $14,766 Richard Rodgers Development Grant, which funded a staged reading of SUPERBIA at Playwrights Horizons.
Jonathans belief in his work was just as large as his talent. He could say with a straight face (and often did), “I am the future of the American Musical”. But all of Jonathans talent, devotion, connections, and persistence could not secure a full-scale production of the show.
Jonathan Larson addressed his disappointment in TICK, TICK . . . BOOM! (1990), an autobiographical rock monologue influenced by the work of Eric Bogosian and Spalding Gray. In the course of twelve songs and stories, he told half-funny, half-bitter tales of bad readings and waiting tables. His character worried about turning thirty, whether to give up writing musicals, and if his current girlfriend was “the one”; he learned that his best friend from childhood was HIV-positive. “TICK” was deliberately easy to stage–“No sets, no costumes, no cast. Just me, a piano, and a band”–but Larsons hopes for a larger production or a record deal went unfulfilled. He did occasional downtown performances of the piece through 1994.
In 1989, the playwright Billy Aronson asked Jonathan to collaborate on an update of “La Bohиme”: a show about would-be artists of the present day coping with poverty, disease, and heartache. Jonathan suggested the multilayered title RENT. They wrote three songs and amicably separated. In 1991, three more of Larsons friends were diagnosed HIV-positive, and he returned alone to the project, with Aronsons blessings.
In contrast to many Broadway shows of the time, which valued spectacle over meaning and technology over personal interaction, Jonathan envisioned a great rock opera that would bring people together, address social issues, and make musical theatre relevant to his generation: “HAIR for the 90s.” Some of the RENT characters were gay, others straight, most were long on style, short on cash, and battling AIDS, addiction, or loneliness. Jonathans score used pop music styles from heavy metal to gospel.
He began the arduous dual development process again. While he did extensive research and tried out new material in friends living rooms, he also applied for grants and looked for producers. In 1992, he approached New York Theatre Workshop, a downtown theatre specializing in new and avant-garde work.