Jonathan Larson

Born February 4, 1960 in White Plains, NY to Nanette and Allan Larson, Jonathan Larson was an artistic prodigy from an early age. His father once said “I was changing his diaper, so he had to be pretty young, and he started singing ‘Yellow Bird.’ In tune.” He and his older sister Julie spent much of their adolescence in drama clubs, music lessons and attending cultural events. Jonathan played many instruments including piano/keyboard, trumpet, and tuba.

In 1978, Jonathan received a full scholarship to Adelphi University in Garden City, NY where he was an acting major. While there he acted, but began to focus on his composing and writing career - creating many cabarets and musicals. It was while he was at Adelphi that he began a friendship with Stephen Sondheim, who would support him for many years. Sondheim, recognizing his talent, told him “there were a lot more starving actors out there than starving composers” and encouraged him to join the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). Sondheim also corresponded with Jonathan for many years and wrote him several letters of recommendation. (Below is a letter Jonathan wrote Sondheim about RENT)

When Jonathan graduated with his BFA in Acting in 1982, he went on to work in summer stock as both an actor and musician and earned his Equity Card from The Barn Theater in Augusta, Michigan. He then moved to New York City in a small apartment with no heat on the West Side. He began waiting tables at the Moondance Diner, a famous staple of SoHo. There, he met Jesse L. Martin, who would eventually play Collins in the original cast of Rent. His tribe of friends was rounded out by young artists and creators including Roger Bart, Marin Mazzie and Scott Burkell. His apartment became the center of the friend group’s lives. Like in Rent, Jonathan let guests up to his place by throwing his key out the window.  He would host what they called “The Peasants’ Feast” where guests would cook and sing and kiki together into the night – listening to Jonathan boast that he would “change the face of American theater”. He had a deep belief in himself and the work he was doing. Left in his personal papers was the following note, which reads: 

“I am striving to become a writer and composer of musicals – I am 25 and am faced with a dilemma.

Although I am a sentimental romantic who loves old fashioned musicals I am a member of a very unsentimental unromantic generation, who generally basically think musicals are too corny.

I feel that if I want to establish myself with “the powers that be” in the theatre I must compose music that appeals to the older ears in the production company houses & audiences

But if I want to try to cultivate a new audience for musicals I must write shows with a score that MTV ears will accept.

If you were me, which audience would you write for?”

As he was writing the show, however, he learned that his childhood best friend Matt O’Grady and at least three of their other friends had contracted HIV. He began to fold his feeling of impermanence into the play. Unfortunately, all of those friends, except Matt, would eventually pass away from AIDS. Another friend, Victoria Lealock said  “We had gone from a crisis to a plague…and it was evident to Jonathan that the palette of ‘Tick’ just wasn’t big enough to deal with the nightmare we were living through.” 

He then set out to dig into another abandoned project - an adaptation of La Boheme by Puccini. A former collaborator had amicably walked away from the script and Jonathan began writing alone in earnest. In 1993, Rent had its first staged reading at New York Theater Workshop and in the three years that followed, Jonathan worked until on January 24, 1996 the cast had their final dress run of the show and prepared to do their first public performance the next evening. That night, Jonathan left the theater and went home. He had been feeling ill for days and had even passed out in tech earlier in the week. Several doctors visits later, he was sent home with a diagnosis of food poisoning. That night, Jonathan died just 10 days shy of his 36th birthday of an aortic dissection as the result of undiagnosed Marfan syndrome.

The cast decided to perform the play as a reading for a few of Jonathan’s family and friends that evening - just sitting at the table but as they began to sing “La Vie Boheme” several actors began to do the full choreography. At intermission, everyone decided to get into full costume and perform the rest of the show as rehearsed. In the end, they were met by several moments of silence in the theater and then from the back of the house someone called out “Thank you, Jonathan Larson.” Larson’s mother describes the moment saying “it was like a spell had broken.”

The show ran at NYTW until April, where it transferred to the Nederlander Theater and ran there for 12 years. The original Broadway cast included all of the NYTW cast members: Taye Diggs, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Jesse L. Martin, Ididna Menzel, Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp, Daphne Rubin-Vega and Fredi Walker.

 For his work on Rent, Larson was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Musical, Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical, and Tony Award for Best Original Score; the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical, Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music, and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics; the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical; the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical in the Off-Broadway category; and Obie Awards for Outstanding Book, Outstanding Lyrics, and Outstanding Music.

The impact of that relationship led him to commit to a lifetime of mentoring others. When he met Jonathan Larson, he took the young creator under his wing. As a mentor, Sondheim was exacting, candid and supportive. The two began a robust correspondence, and Jonathan also shadowed him as Sondheim worked on Into the Woods. Sondheim was responsible for Jonathan getting his first agent, he was the chairman of the committee that offered Jonathan two grants to develop Superbia and wrote him several letters of recommendation.

What did Sondheim think of Larson’s work? He believed in him, but was honest about the state of his development.

 In an interview with Evelyn McDonnell, Sondheim spoke about his thoughts of his friend Jonathan after his death:

E.M.: What did you think of the compositional work?

S.S.: I thought some of the songs were good and others not. The opening number [of Superbia] had some originality to it, whereas the others didn’t. He was still finding a voice and I think he still is. But he had a voice and that was the important thing.

In another part of the interview, he spoke of tick, tick…boom! which at the time was also known by the names 30/90 and Boho Days. 

E.M.: Did you see “Boho Days” or “Tick, Tick … Boom”?

S.S.: I saw a tape of “Tick, Tick … Boom” and heard a tape of “Boho Days.”

E.M.: Did you feel the work [on “Tick” or “Boho”] was progressing, and did you identify with the material?

S.S.: Curiously enough I didn’t feel it was progressing and we talked about that. I felt there was more originality in “Superbia.” I worried that he was getting desperate to be accepted and it was starting to show in the work.

E.M.: In what way?

S.S.: It was getting more like everybody else who was afraid of being original.

E.M.: What did you think of the content of the piece in terms of the frustrations of composing and not being produced?

S.S.: Well, everybody does that. Standard operating procedure. Everybody works for years without getting a hearing unless they’re very lucky. One thing I would say is that he was clinging to “Superbia” too long. I was glad when he started working on the other things. I think his approach to the piece made it insoluble. It got a little better each time but it wasn’t solving the basic problem about the story.

E.M.: I heard you also told him the same thing about “Rent.”

S.S.: I think it is a work in progress. Story focus is it. He wanted to put in everything and the kitchen sink, and he did. I think it suffers from that. 

He also spoke of Jonathan’s writing and rewriting style, especially as he worked on Rent. 

E.M.: Do you remember a conversation you had about Jonathan being asked to do another rewrite?

S.S.: I said you have to learn how to collaborate. He learned. He called me back a few days later and said, You were right. I am willing to collaborate.

E.M.: Did you see the workshop production?

S.S.: Yes.

E.M.: Did you have any idea it [Rent] would be such a success?

S.S.: No. I didn’t know that Jonathan would die, that made it a myth. The last time I’d spoken to him was in December. (Jonathan passed away in January) He felt pleased about the way he was growing up. He felt that way any author does in the middle of rehearsal. “It’s terrible, it’s wonderful. I’m ashamed of it, isn’t it great?”

This interview reflected a lot of what Sondheim felt about the young creator and a clear image of who Jonathan Larson was - a zealous, inventive and hungry composer. There is no doubt that Sondheim saw himself in Jonathan and the fond feelings endured up until Sondheim’s death in 2021. For Lin Manuel Miranda’s film version of tick, tick…, Miranda, who was also mentored by Sondheim, screened the film for him. In true Sondheim fashion, he was honored but had notes. He told Miranda: 

‘One thing: The last voicemail message to Jon, it sounds a little cliché. ‘I have a feeling you’re going to have a very bright future.’ I would never say that. Can I please rewrite what Sondheim says in the voicemail? I’ll record it if you can’t get the actor back.’”

And to stay true to himself, and honor Jonathan, he did just that. The final audio is Sondheim saying: “It’s first-rate work and has a future, and so do you. I’ll call you later with some thoughts, if that’s OK. Meanwhile, be proud.”