Turn 30, 1990
Before "No Day But Today," there was "Come to Your Senses."
I've made it pretty darn clear how fond I am of RENT, the musical and subsequent movie that changed the way I looked at Broadway. Before I took the stage on the final night of the RENT tribute show I was a part of, our director (who also played Roger) played a song from tick, tick...BOOM!, the almost completely unknown musical that Jonathan Larson wrote before RENT. Though the song moved me, I have had the original cast recording on my computer for more than two years without listening to it. When I saw this week that tick, tick was playing at the Walnut Street Theater's Studio Five, I decided to finally make my journey into the show's world.
tick, tick...BOOM! is an autobiographical and shockingly prophetic show about Jonathan, a promising young composer whose career thus far has been so inert that he feels like he's "breaking the promise." He has written and is workshopping a musical called "Superbia," but, as he approaches his thirtieth birthday, he hears the "tick tick booms" of failure and adulthood approaching in the back of his head. His desire to make it big in musicals has strained his relationships with his girlfriend Susan, who wants to move to New England and settle down, and his best friend Michael, who gave up acting in favor of a lucrative career as a market analyst.
( I'm gonna spend my time this way...more after the cut. )
I've made it pretty darn clear how fond I am of RENT, the musical and subsequent movie that changed the way I looked at Broadway. Before I took the stage on the final night of the RENT tribute show I was a part of, our director (who also played Roger) played a song from tick, tick...BOOM!, the almost completely unknown musical that Jonathan Larson wrote before RENT. Though the song moved me, I have had the original cast recording on my computer for more than two years without listening to it. When I saw this week that tick, tick was playing at the Walnut Street Theater's Studio Five, I decided to finally make my journey into the show's world.tick, tick...BOOM! is an autobiographical and shockingly prophetic show about Jonathan, a promising young composer whose career thus far has been so inert that he feels like he's "breaking the promise." He has written and is workshopping a musical called "Superbia," but, as he approaches his thirtieth birthday, he hears the "tick tick booms" of failure and adulthood approaching in the back of his head. His desire to make it big in musicals has strained his relationships with his girlfriend Susan, who wants to move to New England and settle down, and his best friend Michael, who gave up acting in favor of a lucrative career as a market analyst.
( I'm gonna spend my time this way...more after the cut. )
