Inside Jonathan Larson's lost works
A bittersweet East Village homecoming for the creator of 'Rent.'
It’s been almost 30 years since Rent premiered Off-Broadway at New York Theater Workshop. Its creator, Jonathan Larson, died the night before the first preview performance of an aortic dissection, likely the result of an undiagnosed case of Marfan syndrome.
But this isn’t about Larson’s death. Instead, it’s about his legacy and what could—should—have been. The Jonathan Larson Project, now playing at the East Village’s Orpheum Theatre, a neighborhood where Larson found inspiration for much of his work, unpacks never-before-heard compositions, stitched together in a kind of nonlinear quilted song cycle with an earnest cast of five climbing, crawling, and strutting around Michael Schweikardt’s Rent-inspired set.
For those who lived through the hype of Rent’s skyrocketing success—the in-person lottery to snag front row seats, the dilapidated Nederlander Theater, a virtual cast of unknowns (Idina Menzel among them) singing in a style never before heard on Broadway—Rent was a watershed moment.
Related: If Idina Menzel sings from a tree, will anyone on Broadway listen?
Conceived by theater historian and producer Jennifer Ashley Tepper (whose Untold Stories of Broadway book series makes a great read or gift), The Jonathan Larson Project is an earnest trunk show, illuminating Larson’s sense of storytelling, compositional prowess, and empathy for marginalized communities. It’s also got quite a bit of rage, and that’s a good thing.
Larson, who would have turned 65 this February, lived through the AIDS crisis and the fallout of Reaganomics and, like many struggling artists, endured an endless struggle to bring his work to the stage. In the show’s opening moments, we hear his tension in a ghostly voice: “I’m so close … so patient … a little ragged.”
Which about sums up The Jonathan Larson Project as a standalone piece of theater.
1MC takeaway: Much of The Jonathan Larson Project feels unfinished because it is: a melodic interval that offers a familiar echo; a nearly perfect lyric but not quite Sondheimian in execution. Rentheads may obsess over these intricate details, while the average theater goer might ask, “What was all the fuss about?”
The Jonathan Larson Project plays Off-Broadway at the Orpheum Theatre through June 1. Tickets are available here.
Have another minute? ⏰ Read my interview with actor Andy Mientus from The Jonathan Larson Project.