Larson originally performed the show by himself, sitting at a piano after his death, it was reworked into a three-actor musical, which helped distribute the burden of his complex compositions. But Tick, Tick … Boom is by far the most challenging project he’s tackled, given that the material is inherently stage-bound. Following that show’s runaway success, Miranda has worked on several animated movies, acted in Mary Poppins Returns, and helped shepherd a film adaptation of In the Heights. It’s also the best thing Miranda’s made since Hamilton. In doing so, he has turned Larson’s small-scale show into an inventive piece of cinematic biography, retaining the musical’s spirit and songs but successfully expanding the storytelling scope to fit the big screen. Understandably, then, in his filmmaking debut Miranda has zeroed in on another figure overflowing with ambition and creative passion.
He produced his first musical, In the Heights, on Broadway at the age of 28 before experiencing colossal success with Hamilton, a show about a Founding Father who, according to Miranda’s lyrics, also wrote like he was running out of time. Miranda is, after all, something of a Broadway prodigy himself.
Miranda understands the bittersweet tinge to Larson leaving behind an autobiographical show that tracks his anxiety about growing up. Larson’s next big success was the rock musical Rent, a show that changed the course of Broadway, but he never got to see it: He died of an aortic aneurysm at age 35 the night before Rent’s first performance. Larson, however, actually was running out of time, as the film adaptation, directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda and starring Andrew Garfield, notes in a touching prologue. Tick, Tick … Boom is an exciting, sometimes angry, but winningly self-aware examination, a cri de coeur that feels like the announcement of a thrilling new talent, even one who fears that he’s already over the hill. Larson wrote the show, which he initially performed as a sung-through monologue in 1990, as a response to his failure to produce an ambitious musical titled Superbia. The song, and Tick, Tick … Boom in general, is layered with retrospective irony. Meanwhile, Larson is still toiling in obscurity, living in an unheated loft in early-’90s New York and trying to break through in the world of theater. As he hammers away at a piano, Larson notes that his idol, the composer Stephen Sondheim, contributed to his first Broadway show at the age of 27. That’s the underlying message of “30/90,” the first song in his original musical Tick, Tick … Boom and an energized ballad about the theatrical composer’s worries that he hasn’t accomplished enough-at the age of 30. Jonathan Larson is someone who writes like he is running out of time.
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