Do you ever wonder what it takes to create a groundbreaking musical that forever changes the landscape of Broadway? Imagine being a young artist, grappling with themes as profound as the HIV AIDS epidemic, LGBTQ+ issues, and urban poverty. Fascinating, right? In our latest episode, we take a deep look into the life and legacy of Jonathan Larson, the mastermind behind the Broadway sensation, RENT. In the face of adversity and his untimely passing, Larson’s vision resonated with audiences and went on to win several Tony awards.
What if the secret to achieving greatness lies in rubbing shoulders with the greats? Picture a young Stephen Sondheim, learning from Broadway's finest and paving his way to musical theatre fame. We explore his profound influence on Larson and how such mentorship and early exposure to skills shape the artistic journey. It's an absorbing dive into the world of Sondheim's collaborations with Richard Rogers, Leonard Bernstein, and Oscar Haberstein II, and their lasting impacts on musical theatre.
Lastly, ever wonder about the enduring legacy of a show like RENT? Despite the immense challenges Larson faced, his commitment to portraying the realities of his generation continues to inspire artists and audiences alike. Intriguingly, we also discuss a little-known fact about Idina Menzel, one of the original cast members, and her connection to the musical. As a tribute to Larson, we remind artists about the importance of using their voices for meaningful causes and prioritizing self-care. It's an episode packed with insights, fascinating stories, and an exploration of what makes a true artistic legacy.
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Do you ever wonder what it takes to create a groundbreaking musical that forever changes the landscape of Broadway? Imagine being a young artist, grappling with themes as profound as the HIV AIDS epidemic, LGBTQ+ issues, and urban poverty. Fascinating, right? In our latest episode, we take a deep look into the life and legacy of Jonathan Larson, the mastermind behind the Broadway sensation, RENT. In the face of adversity and his untimely passing, Larson’s vision resonated with audiences and went on to win several Tony awards.
What if the secret to achieving greatness lies in rubbing shoulders with the greats? Picture a young Stephen Sondheim, learning from Broadway's finest and paving his way to musical theatre fame. We explore his profound influence on Larson and how such mentorship and early exposure to skills shape the artistic journey. It's an absorbing dive into the world of Sondheim's collaborations with Richard Rogers, Leonard Bernstein, and Oscar Haberstein II, and their lasting impacts on musical theatre.
Lastly, ever wonder about the enduring legacy of a show like RENT? Despite the immense challenges Larson faced, his commitment to portraying the realities of his generation continues to inspire artists and audiences alike. Intriguingly, we also discuss a little-known fact about Idina Menzel, one of the original cast members, and her connection to the musical. As a tribute to Larson, we remind artists about the importance of using their voices for meaningful causes and prioritizing self-care. It's an episode packed with insights, fascinating stories, and an exploration of what makes a true artistic legacy.
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RENT. Rent is a musical that was created by Jonathan Larson. He wrote the music, the lyrics and the book for the musical. Unfortunately, jonathan Larson passed away unexpectedly on January 25, 1996, the day before RENT premiered off Broadway. The musical went on to achieve great success and won several Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Jonathan Larson's RENT is often accredited with changing the face of musical theater. Rent departed from the more traditional light-hearted musicals that were prevalent on Broadway. It tackled contemporary and relevant themes such as the HIV AIDS epidemic, lgbtq issues, poverty and the struggles of young artists in a gritty urban setting.
Speaker 2:Larson was obsessed. Larson was hooked on the idea saying things like this is going to be the MTV generation's hair. He already knew this was going to be something revolutionary that would live on in the public zeitgeist.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to dive into the extraordinary life and enduring contributions of Jonathan Larson, a trailblazing force in musical theater, whose groundbreaking work, notably RENT, not only reshaped the Broadway landscape but also played a pivotal role LGBTQ plus visibility and narratives within the artistic realm.
Speaker 2:Absolutely he did, I would say at this point, especially through the 90s, rent was considered the epitome of queer culture. Even now, if you meet a queer person and find out they haven't seen RENT, you get this little chorus of what do you mean? You haven't seen RENT? That is an icon, that is a staple. That is something that you have to see. I found out my boyfriend hadn't seen it and I was like well, now I know what movie we're going to be watching next.
Speaker 1:Yeah, rent is known for addressing societal and political issues. I have two nieces that are 13 and 14, and I'm always asking them hey, have you seen this? Have you seen that? Have you seen the West Side Story? Have you seen RENT? And they're always like no. And they look at me. Their eyes are questioning me like why? And I'm like because they're classics, you have to know. These works for so many reasons.
Speaker 2:Exactly, they set a foundation for a lot of references that you're going to see throughout the world a lot of different things in other books and in other movies, in other pieces of music and stuff like that you'll get references. So it's one of those things that absolutely, if you have not seen the movie Rendition, I would recommend it. I would absolutely more recommend seeing a play Rendition of RENT, but I understand that it is far easier to access the movie in times like these. So, yes, watch it please.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Jonathan Larson's commitment to portraying the struggles of his generation right in the 90s in a contemporary way contributed much to the musical success.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And, mind you, he did not only write RENT Jonathan Larson in his life also wrote Tic-Tic, Boom, Superbia and JP Morgan Saves the Nation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Jonathan Larson's musical Superbia was inspired by Giacomo Puccini's opera La Boheme. And La Boheme is a classic Italian opera it premiered in 1896, and it tells the story of a group of Bohemian artists living in Paris in the 1830s. And that opera explores the themes of love, poverty, the struggles of young artists, just as RENT did. When Jonathan Larson was writing Superbia, he was inspired by La Boheme, but then RENT actually was based on it.
Speaker 2:Based on it. Yeah, that's the distinct difference. He was mildly inspired by it for Superbia, but Superbia was mainly based on 1984 by George Orwell. He just couldn't call it the same thing because he didn't get the rights. That's the only reason Superbia isn't called 1984. He would have called it the same shit, he just wasn't allowed.
Speaker 1:I don't know when the. Do you know when the book was was published?
Speaker 2:1984. It was published in 63, because I used to have a 1984 publication of 1984. It was one of my prized possessions.
Speaker 1:I tend to think if he did name Superbia in 1984, it probably would have had more attention than the name Superbia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the thing, but unfortunately, yeah, he wasn't allowed to, so he named it Superbia. So while Superbia was inspired by this opera, it was meant to be directly based upon George Orwell's novel 1984. With this dystopian futuristic society where people are so glued to their screens they've basically forgotten how to feel their own emotions or even basic empathy toward what they're witnessing. Except one is one guy is a defective and he's still feeling everything, and he's feeling his own things and other people's things, and Superbia kind of centers in on his story and how he's trying to use his voice and his art to kind of break free the other people, no matter what it takes. It seems like a very interesting story but unfortunately, even though this poor man, mr Jonathan Larson, dumped eight years of dedicated work, to the point where he pushed away people around him in his own life, it never got produced.
Speaker 2:Superbia was a launching point in his life. He contacts his agent. His agent has all these producers show up to see a reading of Superbia and they love it. They think it's got something, but none of them want to actually produce it because they don't think it's really going to give back what they would put in. But it's got something and they recognize that. So much so that Stephen I always get his last name wrong Stephen Sondheim.
Speaker 1:Sondheim, stephen Sondheim.
Speaker 2:Yes, stephen Sondheim contacted him and wanted to work with him and mentor him and help him write the next big thing. Help him write whatever it is he's now trying to work on to be his next big thing, because he saw promise in Larson. He saw the next big thing on Broadway in this young composer and at this point he had just turned 30, which was kind of his death sentence, if you will. As an artist which I can relate to he very much thought that if he didn't do it by 30, it wasn't going to happen. He just wasn't going to make it. And as a struggling artist in their late 20s wow, does that hit like a bullet to the chest? Oh my God. It just goes to show he didn't make it at 30, but he kept going and he made it. He's remembered. It's really important to acknowledge and remember this man, because it was all he really wanted in his work was to be acknowledged and remembered.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Stephen Sondheim is actually a really big name in musical theater and his first significant breakthrough came when he started working with composer Leonard Bernstein on the musical West Side Story that premiered on Broadway in 1957. And I think the significance with Jonathan Larson feeling like he needed to make it before he turned 30, was that Stephen Sondheim was one of his greatest mentors, or became one of his greatest mentors, throughout the course of him writing Superbia. And Stephen Sondheim produced the West Side Story with Leonard Bernstein when he well, they started collaborating when Stephen Sondheim was 27 years old, so, and he was initially hired on as the lyricist for the production of the West Side Story, and so I think he felt the pressure because Stephen Sondheim was, I mean, he had his breakthrough before he was 30. Jonathan Larson just felt like his life would be over if he didn't make at least, or start at least making a name for himself.
Speaker 2:But first off, absolutely wild to me, that West Side Story came out in 1957.
Speaker 2:That alone.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you saw my face, but I just went through a whole trip of emotions at that information, like wow, and just to hear that, like that was one of the reasons why he most likely got that obsession with doing it before 30.
Speaker 2:Like again, it's something that is very relatable, I feel like, for a lot of young artists, especially with the age of the internet, the age of social media. You see all of these young and sometimes even younger than you artists and even like business owners, like people who make earrings, people who make you know they're going viral, they're doing it, they're making it and you're just kind of like all right, when's my thing going to come, when's it going to happen for me? And you kind of start to feel really hopeless that all of the work you're putting in is never really going to go anywhere. But you just got to keep writing the next one, just like Larson was told when Superbia went nowhere and he didn't know what else to do sit down and write the next one, keep going. That's what it is to be an artist.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's actually interesting because the West Side story it didn't actually reach success immediately, at least commercially, unlike Jonathan Larson's rent Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein. They laid the foundation for Sondheim's career as a composer and lyricist but he didn't have that immediate success like Jonathan Larson did. And I just find that super fascinating because Stephen Sondheim was such a huge part of Jonathan Larson's mentorship but Stephen Sondheim didn't start mentoring Jonathan Larson until toward the end of his writing Superbia, which was right before that workshop that you were saying, where he invited a bunch of guests. And, as I understand, stephen Sondheim actually made phone calls on Jonathan Larson's behalf to invite people to get them in the room to put them in front of him. Because Jonathan Larson definitely had a different style. He was very heavily influenced by the rock genres and just his intricate way of composing and interweaving storytelling and his phrasing and his voicing with chord structures and things like that was so beyond his time. And I think Stephen Sondheim recognized that in him because even in Sondheim's own works he kind of skated a line. He broke all the rules. He was trying new things and just being really musically what's a good word Like not defiant but adventurous, just being really musically adventurous and didn't really stay within the typical verse, chorus, verse sort of structures. So I find it fascinating that I actually wanted to just say this one thing.
Speaker 1:When I was an undergraduate and I was a music major and my windband conductor at the time, who is still a good friend, colleague and mentor of mine, dr Jack Stamp he was the windband conductor where I was getting my bachelor's degree in music and he once told us that you have to rub elbows with the people who rub elbows with the greats. And at that time I was maybe 19 years old. I was thinking to myself well, you rub elbows with them because they're great. But now my understanding is, especially after researching for this episode you rub elbows with the greats to become great. So Stephen Sondheim he was the mentor of Jonathan Larson and Jonathan Larson was over. He had greatness in him.
Speaker 1:He just didn't have access to a lot of resources. He lived in poverty, he lived in an apartment that often didn't have electricity. His friends didn't understand his passion, which could become a madness, and unless you're a musician and artist and you have that burning desire to succeed, you don't really understand what it's like to have all of this creativity, all of this creation inside of you and you're letting it out, but you're living in the confines in the context of cultural domestication. In other words, you have to go to work, you have to pay the bills, you have to make money, you have to eat, you have to survive in the ways that are expected and if you're an artist, a lot of times you're not respected, especially if you're not making money. And it's crazy because artists are the. Artists are the people that should define our culture. They should set the standards for culture.
Speaker 2:In a way, artists do. I mean we think about the things that end up living on. We think about the things from the past that we immortalized, that we I mean it was the art in museums in France that curators risked their lives for during World War II, so it wouldn't fall into the hands of the Nazis risked their own lives to rescue the statue, the Nike, the La Victory statue, the one of the wings, because they couldn't imagine the thought of the most evil man in history standing next to La Victory. You know, Art has always defined us. It's always been the thing that has held the fabric together between things like corruption and greed and these things that don't actually have value unless we give them value. You know, like the money means nothing unless we give it the value that it has, Gold means nothing until we give it value. Gold meant nothing until we gave it value.
Speaker 2:But cave paintings, Cave paintings always meant something throughout the entirety of human history. Cave paintings always meant something. We didn't have to articulate, we didn't have to try to figure it out, we didn't have to try to quantify what that's worth. We always just knew it was always worth something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great way to put it.
Speaker 2:Make me cry just thinking about it. I love my dmg.
Speaker 1:I know it's intense.
Speaker 2:We are all artists. We are all artists at the end of the day, every human. Look at little kids. One of the first things little kids do when they learn to use their hands is they try to pick up a crayon or a pen or a pencil and get something down. It's in us, it's born in us. That's something that has. It is intrinsic to everything with complex thought is the idea of leaving a mark, and that's what art is. It's every human trying to leave a mark and every human is capable of doing that. It's just systems like capitalism and like you know a bunch of other shit that stops us all from doing it. But we all can. We're all capable.
Speaker 1:There's this idea too of musical aptitude. When I was an undergraduate, I learned in one of my classes that music aptitude levels at the age of nine. So the more you're exposed to a certain skill set, ie language, which we're going to include music, because in a way music is language. It's just a lot of its song, but the way we understand it, its complexities, it's similar to that of language. And so if it's this idea of music aptitude levels at the age of nine, well, the more exposed a child is, from in utero to nine years old, to concepts of a certain thing, a certain skill set, the higher aptitude they have for developing that skill set later on in life. So I say that to say I was in school as a music student with some colleagues that had been taking piano lessons since they were four years old and their musical aptitude was way higher than mine because I hadn't been in piano lessons since I was four years old. And I'm just saying that as a comparison. I think sometimes you have born geniuses, or you have some people who develop their skill set because they have the passion to do so and stick with it.
Speaker 1:Tying in this whole thing with Steven Sondheim and Jonathan Larson. What's really cool to see as well is Steven Sondheim. He actually studied with Oscar Haberstein II and Oscar Haberstein II. He was also a lyricist, a librettist, and he was best known for his collaborations with Richard Rogers, and you probably heard some of these titles Oklahoma, carousel, south Pacific, the King and I and the Sound of Music. So it's crazy. This is how awesome the world is.
Speaker 1:Because Steven Sondheim's parents were both into fashion and it turns out that I believe it was his mom worked specifically in fashion, on Broadway. And because his parents worked in the fashion industry, he was exposed to Broadway a lot and then that's when he was little he ended up developing his love for musical theater. So if you think about that thing I said with the aptitude, here's Steven Sondheim who revolutionizes, is very pivotal in musical theater. And then he rubbed elbows with Oscar Haberstein and Richard Rogers and he also worked with Leonard Bernstein, and Leonard Bernstein I don't know if you know this about him, but he used to be the musical director of the New York Philharmonic and he also composed symphonies but he was a musical genius in his own right. That's amazing. Yeah, it's just crazy how everything overlaps.
Speaker 2:That's incredible.
Speaker 1:So, like you were saying earlier, not a lot of people know that Jonathan Larson is the person responsible for creating rent, and I think it's really important to know that. Yes, Jonathan Larson had a lot of genius within him. He also is part of a long legacy of composers, musical geniuses, who also rubbed elbows with a lot of greats, and so did he.
Speaker 2:He had a lot of instances of right place, right time. I will say he absolutely had the natural talent, but he also had a lot of instances of I was in the right place at the exact right moment and that's amazing. I love it.
Speaker 1:I have to make one correction. I said earlier that his mother worked on Broadway. His mother worked in fashion, but his father was a dress manufacturer who also designed for Broadway. So it's his father.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, and that's Steven Sondheim. I just wanted to make sure we connected that to a name so people didn't get confused as to who we were talking about, but I didn't want to butcher that man's last name again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And just a side note on Steven Sondheim's some of his famous productions or groundbreaking productions he wrote company in 1970, Follies in 1971, a little night music in 1973, and my personal favorite, Sweeney Todd in 1979. And these works challenged and expanded the possibilities of musical theater. Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street that was in 1979. It's a very, very dark musical and it tells the story of a vengeful barber, and that one actually won the Tony Award for Best Musical and is celebrated for its complex characters and powerful storytelling. And that's also something that Jonathan Larson was noted for as well is his ability to create such amazing music around a powerful story, or should I say many stories.
Speaker 2:I love that, I appreciate that heavily. I say I feel like even with like tick, tick, boom, even though it is an autobiographical story, it's just a story about his own life. It is a perfect example of weaving that storytelling and music together, just so like they're married. The story and the music are no longer two separate things happening at once, they are just one intrinsic being entity together. And I feel like that's kind of something that is only really done in a very, very, very, very good play. You only see that in a very good musical. It takes another level to be able to accomplish that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I don't know if we actually went over tick tick boom earlier, but it's a semi-autobiographical musical by Larson that he performed as a one-man show originally and it explores the challenges faced by him in aspiring composer as he approaches his 30th birthday. And then, after his death, the show was revised and eventually staged as a three-actor musical in 2001.
Speaker 2:That's wonderful. So he ended up writing tick tick boom. After Superbius eight year writing and then subsequent non-production he went back to the drawing board and, after spiraling a little bit which I feel like any artist would probably do after having eight years just be for naught he was seemingly reminded that being 30 does not mean running out of time. There are many other things that can lead to you running out of time, for example, the fact that around the same time he started writing tick tick boom, his best friend for most of his life, named Matt O'Grady, was diagnosed with AIDS. So Matt has a counterpart in tick tick boom named Michael. Michael is directly based off of this real-life friend, who is a very stark real-life reminder for Larson that just getting another year older is not killing your career, is not killing your ability, is not killing your passion or your drive. It doesn't have to unless you allow it to.
Speaker 1:That childhood friend, matt worked at an advertising agency and tried to get Larsen a job. And he was like no, I don't want that life, I don't want the BMW and the Dormin building, I want to be known for my work and my contributions to the musical theater. And Matt turned around and he said look, I can probably get you a job writing jingles. He said you call me up on the phone, you call all of our friends up on the phone and you compose a jingle on the spot. He goes you're a genius, you can probably you can get paid for that. And Larsen said no, I'm not interested. So whether that was stubborn or noble, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Fair. He also I was reading that he tended to specifically hold steadfast against doing that because a lot of these companies, especially, you know, prior to when regulations started tightening up in the early 2000s and later 90s, a lot of these corporations were doing a lot of shady stuff he would. He refused. I respect this honestly. He refused to compromise his morals for the sake of comfort, and genuinely I appreciate that that is. That is something that I feel like not a lot of people are willing to do nowadays is compromise their sake of safety and sake of comfort and sake of physical well-being, for morals and principles, which is something that you know some people hold very, very close while others don't, and it's clear that Larsen held them, above all, even his own bodily safety.
Speaker 1:Plus, as genius as Jonathan was, I don't think he would end up owning the rights to his own jingles, so it was a good decision on his part.
Speaker 2:Again, it's respect for the sake of your principles and morals. That's a very, very respectable position to hold and I personally appreciate it, even if you know like man's was struggling. Like a perfect example, if you have seen rent, the apartment that is shown throughout rent is based upon his own apartment. They had an extension cord that had to go through the place and that was their only source of electricity. The floors were busted. They had to drop a key down in order for anyone to get in. It was infested. It was $100 a month. It went up to $200 a month max. It was dirt cheap but it was, as his old roommate put it, a shithole. If you see rent, that's that it was directly ripped from his own living conditions. He wanted to show the artist's story in New York from the artist's perspective and he used his own life to do so.
Speaker 1:And the characters in rent reflect a diverse range of backgrounds, sexual orientations and experiences, and specifically the character of Angel Dumont-Shanard, for example, is a drag queen and a central figure in the LGBTQ plus storyline of rent.
Speaker 2:It holds a special place in my heart and soul as well. I'm gonna cry in her name alone, but it's fine, I'm fine. Anyway, if you're interested in seeing a separate rendition of Tick, tick Boom, there's a movie starring Andrew Garfield and directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, a writer of Hamilton who was heavily inspired by Jonathan Larson's work and life, for his own future rewriting of Broadway, basically. So I would recommend checking out the film. I've heard it's phenomenal. I personally have not seen it, but my lovely co-host has.
Speaker 1:Yes, I definitely enjoyed it. It was brilliantly done.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It elicits disclaimer. It elicits all the feels.
Speaker 2:I have heard. I watched a video districtation on it on YouTube, which all y'all out there who are fans of video essays. I found a phenomenal video essay about Tick Tick Boom. I recommend looking up just a video essay about it if it's something that you're not quite sure you're ready for. All the feels in quite that amount of time you can handle. Like a 17-minute snippet of the feels I recommend.
Speaker 2:So yeah, tick Tick Boom never really went on Broadway, never really went too many places, but it did get his name on the map. That Tick Tick Boom and his personal traveling performing it is really what got people looking his way, being like, okay, this is someone who has a lot of spark. This is someone I mean outside of the composing world, just like the general, like the playhouses and the people who would really be producing this were the ones that were now looking at him being like, okay, this is someone we should keep an eye on. He's got anything else coming out. We should try to get it, because this is someone who's gonna make something of themselves, you know. And so, from there, with the the slight success of tick tick boom, he is approached by a man named billy erin son, who has a goal of reenvisioning the classic opera love oh him In the modern day through a totally modern lens just is take that story, bring it here and immediately.
Speaker 2:Larson was obsessed. Larson was hooked on the idea. Saying things like this is gonna be the mtv generations hair. He already knew this was going to be something Revolutionary that would live on in the public site. Guys, he was looking like five steps ahead.
Speaker 1:He could spot a genius impressive, say so.
Speaker 2:Well, he was just all for it, ready to dive in inspired. Erin son was a little more Reserved. He wasn't entirely sure if this idea was really going to give them back everything that they were putting in for. You know, you have to pay to record every single track. Is takes time, this takes money, this takes effort and erin son wasn't sure if they were gonna get back what they were putting in for it. He wasn't sure that it was gonna actually pull in an audience. He looked at erin son, looked at the idea.
Speaker 2:More is like a fun passion project. Where is larson saw this and when? This is a production, this is gonna change things. Like he was ready to make this like a full twelve song thing. Where is? Erin son kind of wanted to keep this a little smaller, a little Low budget and they kind of, while they were working together at first they kind of struggled with some of the creative differences. I was actually reading an article on playbill dot com where Billy erin son in present day was interviewed about this and he was like I could see that this man had so much inspiration and so much passion. I didn't want to stop him but I was kind of he himself was in a very unsure place in life financially, physically, things of that nature. He was like I don't know if I can personally sacrifice everything that he is willing to sacrifice for this. He respected the willingness, but he didn't know if he could do the same, which is so fair.
Speaker 1:His entire existence and purpose was to change musical theater contribute in such a large way that he left his mark. So to hear that he was working with someone who just wasn't sure just sounds crazy to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it took very little time. It was actually well, larson was on a road trip across the country when he was with his friend and he was talking to this friend about how he could legally and easily get rent for himself. Yeah, just just, he can be the one writing it, working on it it's his, and basically him and Billy erin son worked together on a written agreement that would allow erin son to be credited for the three songs that he helped write, along with the idea itself of a reimagining of la bohem, and larson would get you know everything else. He would get the rights to finish it, the rights to produce it, the rights to keep going with it, kind of thing. And it was even in the article.
Speaker 2:Billy erin son said it was a very agreeable, he was an agreeable person. I'm really happy we were able to do that and I could see that he wanted this more than anything. I could see that he wanted this more than I could ever possibly begin to. I recommend the play bill article. Honestly, play bill dot com it's. They've got a bunch of stuff all about larson, including His journal entries and notes from the days of writing rent, so like you can actually see like what dates certain songs were tracked and started and finished, which is very, very cool. It's like a little peek in history.
Speaker 1:When you have a composer, never hear people say, oh, that's in the style of Beethoven, oh, that sounds like Beethoven. You don't know it's Beethoven, but you know Beethoven's music enough, you've heard it enough. They're like, oh, that's a Beethoven s composer. It might not be Beethoven, it might be somebody from his time period someone who was inspired.
Speaker 2:By him yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's interesting just to see the evolution of how rent came to be, because you see evidence of all his chord structuring, the voicing of the chords, the you know we're gonna break out in rock right now for you know a few measures or a few bars, or a song or two Interweaving story lines, just just these main things. And it's so characteristic of his writing like rent is. So Jonathan larson, absolutely it's crazy that someone like erinson would be like hey, I'm not sure. Even just when I heard the chord structures for supervia, his writing alone it's another love was like Wow, it's a whole other level, absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's crazy because I mean he starts. He started writing rent. He was in pro. He was approached with the idea and started writing rent in 1990. By 1993, rent was having its first showing. Mind you, it was. It was a small. It was a very small play house that had just recently renovated. That is actually still at the location it was at this time. Give me one moment, it's at seventy nine east fourth street. So this play house is still open and this was technically where rent was read for the first time. In 1993 they had a. A reading of.
Speaker 2:It didn't really go anywhere but people like to, you know, people like okay, this is good. He took a year, cleaned it up, handled some of the you know the longer parts and kind of short, ended up a little bit because a lot of people said it had dragged on. That was one of the biggest critique. See it gotten. And by the next year there was a investor in the audience who loved it so much that he went backstage with his checkbook open and said how much do you need to make this a thing? It wasn't even he did that at intermission. The play wasn't even over yet. At the intermission he went back and said how much do you need to make this a thing Like, let's, let's go, I'm ready.
Speaker 2:It was some type of owner of a different playhouse or something along those lines, was a production investor of some sorts that had gone back there to him during the intermission and that, from there, is how rent ended up getting the funding to, in 1996, on January 25th, be able to open at the New York City Playhouse. It was the New York Theatre Workshop. It was January 25th. 1996 was the exact day that both Jonathan Larson died and his play premiered. He passed away in the morning. He was found by his roommate on the kitchen floor and that night rent would go on to premiere at the New York City Theatre Workshop to a standing ovation Out the ass. Every day, every performance since has been dedicated to his memory and to his life. He won so many awards. In the aftermath it just goes to show that he, he really did change shit.
Speaker 1:But how about that irony of he dies the night of the world premiere?
Speaker 2:that morning he had an aortic dissection that was believed to be caused by an undiagnosed connective tissue disorder known as Marfan's syndrome. We do need to consider the fact that while he was living in abject poverty and spending so much of his time and energy focusing on his art, to the point where he sacrificed the relationships around him it it would make sense that if he sacrificed the relationships around him, he probably also sacrificed his health. Who knows if he actually Went to the doctor for certain other symptoms that could have caught the Marfan's far sooner? It's, it's one of those. Things were, unfortunately, those two times he went, the EKG and the x-ray came back normal.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's not like the doctors can just start splitting him open and digging around in there and seeing what's up. They. They can only diagnose with what they have to diagnose with, and if he had never been in prior to that for anything Connected to Marfan's, I Can. It makes sense why it got this and it just goes to show that even if you're an artist because I listen artist to artist, I'm looking at y'all Take care of yourselves. Things that can get much worse. That didn't have to get worse if it was handled sooner. So please, please, please, artists out there, take care of yourselves please, because I know it's hard.
Speaker 1:At very least go to your chiropractor there.
Speaker 2:Fair. Shame was plug you know what. Valid as someone who has not been in way too long. Fair, but yeah, I think his story is such a good reminder to artists that Getting older is not the end. You still have time. There's always time. You're not too late, you're not too early. Everything's gonna happen when it's meant to. You're okay, just keep going at it, keep taking deep breaths and use your voice Any way you can for causes that mean a lot to you, because a lot of the time, that's the art that lives on Like. That's the art that makes it. It's the art that's written and designed and created for the causes and the the Injustices that we see occurring around us.
Speaker 1:That's the art that lives so Jonathan died in January 1996 and a few months later, in April of 1996, rent hit Broadway winning the Tony for best musical, the Pulitzer Prize for drama, and and Larsen personally won two Tonys posthumously, and if you don't know what that means, it means after death and, like I said, if you haven't seen it, I definitely recommend, I Absolutely recommend seeing rent.
Speaker 2:It's. It's great, it's phenomenal, it's. It's a truly one of those stories that Reminds you that every day is precious, and reminds you that the people around you are precious and that you yourself are precious, and that Nothing is gonna happen without you making it happen Exactly.
Speaker 1:It's a classic, you know.
Speaker 2:It is, yeah, and you'll learn fun facts like how many minutes are in a year that you didn't know. That Speaking of fun facts, what a segue. Oh my god.
Speaker 1:Would you like to share a fun fact for the evening?
Speaker 2:Absolutely I would love to. So this may be a fun fact that a bunch of people know, but I know that I had no idea that this was a thing. So I Dina Menzel, who I'm sure we all know for playing Elsa and singing as Elsa in Disney's hit film Frozen. She got her start and her launch to singing stardom as Maureen Johnson in the first production of rent. She played this character both at the the New York City Theatre Workshop where rent first premiered in 96, and Would then subsequently play her on Broadway as well. You.