Jonathan Larson

- An Immoral Musical on the Moral Majority.'' It played a four-week showcase run at Rusty's Storefront Blitz, a small theatre on 42nd Street in New York, Manhattan, and won both authors a writing award from ASCAP.

After graduating, Larson participated in a summer stock theatre program at the Barn Theatre in Augusta, Michigan, as a piano player, which resulted in his earning an Equity card for membership in the Actors' Equity Association.

Jonathan David Larson (February 4, 1960 – January 25, 1996) was an American composer, lyricist and playwright most famous for writing the musicals Rent and Tick, Tick... Boom!, which explored the social issues of multiculturalism, substance use disorder, and homophobia.

He received three posthumous Tony Awards and a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Rent.

Larson was born in Mt. Vernon, New York to Nanette ( Notarius) and Allan Larson of White Plains, New York, on February 4, 1960.

His family was Jewish.

His grandfather, Bernard Isaac Lazarson, who was born in Russia, changed the family surname from Lazarson.

At an early age, Larson played the trumpet and tuba, sang in his school's choir, and took piano lessons.

His early musical influences and his favorite rock musicians included Elton John, The Doors, The Who, and Billy Joel, as well as the classic composers of musical theatre, especially Stephen Sondheim.

He also loved Pete Townshend, The Police, Prince, Liz Phair, and The Beatles.

Larson attended White Plains High School, where he was also involved in acting, performing in lead roles in various productions, graduating in 1978.

He had a sister, Julie.

It was first staged at Adelphi University in the winter of 1981.

Larson attended Adelphi University in Garden City, New York, with a four-year scholarship as an acting major, in addition to performing in numerous plays and musical theatre, graduating in 1982 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

Larson stopped acting to focus on compositions.

During his college years, he began music composition, composing music first for small student productions, called cabarets, and later the score to a musical entitled The Book of Good Love (Libro de Buen Amor), written by the department head, Jacques Burdick, who was also Larson's college mentor.

As a student at Adelphi University, Larson co-wrote Sacrimmoralinority, a Brechtian-themed cabaret musical and his first musical, with David Glenn Armstrong.

After Larson and Armstrong graduated in 1982, they renamed it ''Saved!

In 1983, Larson planned to write a musical adaptation of George Orwell's book Nineteen Eighty-Four, which he planned to get produced in the year 1984; however, the Orwell estate denied him permission.

Larson then began the process of adapting his work on 1984 into a futuristic story of his own, titled Superbia.

Superbia was modified many times.

In the first drafts, the story, set in the year 2064, followed the character Josh Out, a member of OUTLAND, a society where emotions are erased from everyone at birth.

Due to complications at birth, Josh maintained his emotions, and spent his life as an inventor, searching for something that could wake up the rest of his family and society.

One day, Josh discovers a Music Box, which has the power to bring emotions to the other members of OUTLAND.

He meets Elizabeth In, a girl his age from INCITY, who convinces him to spread the power of the music box.

Josh travels to INCITY, where the INs live.

The INs are the celebrities of this society who spend their days having their scripted lives filmed and transmitted to the OUTs as entertainment.

In INCITY, Josh must face the temptations of fame in order to succeed on his mission.

By the time Larson finished his final draft of the show, it was a much darker piece that took a deeper look into the power of emotions and mankind's attachment to technology.

In this version, Josh was already married to Elizabeth at the beginning of the story and they are both OUTs.

Like the other OUTs, Elizabeth is addicted to technology, and is unable to truly love.

As the story begins, Josh leaves Elizabeth in order to find a greater life.

Elizabeth wakes up from her technological trance and pursues Josh.

Superbia won the Richard Rodgers Production Award and the Richard Rodgers Development Grant.

However, despite performances at Playwrights Horizons and a rock concert version produced by Larson's close friend and producer Victoria Leacock at the Village Gate in September 1989, Superbia never received a full production.

His next work, completed in 1991, was an autobiographical "rock monologue" entitled 30/90, which was later renamed Boho Days and finally titled Tick, Tick... Boom! This piece, written for only Larson with a piano and rock band, drew on his feelings of rejection caused by the disappointment of Superbia.

In the 2001 three-person musical version of Larson's monologue TICK, TICK... BOOM, the 11 o'clock number from the Musical Comedy version of Superbia, "Come to your Senses" was included.

Another song from Superbia ("LCD Readout") was included on the 2007 album "Jonathan Sings Larson".

In 2019, the song "One of these Days", originally sung by Josh near the beginning of the early drafts of Superbia, was included on the album "The Jonathan Larson Project".

On February 4, 2022, "Sextet Montage" was released on streaming platforms as a single.