More than 20 unknown songs from the archives of Jonathan Larson — including songs that were cut from “Rent” and various other projects — have been woven together into “The Jonathan Larson Project,” a new musical about a young man striving to make it in New York City.
After originally being developed in 2018 as a concert version at 54 Below (which received a cast album), it will officially open on Monday at the Orpheum Theatre in the East Village (not far from New York Theatre Workshop, where “Rent” received its world premiere). Larson, who authored “Rent,” tragically died on the eve of its debut in 1996 at just 35.
Theater historian Jennifer Ashley Tepper, who conceived of the show after immersing herself in Larson’s voluminous archives, spoke with us about five of the show’s previously undiscovered songs. Tepper’s responses have been edited for length and clarity.
“One of These Days”: “I first heard the song on the album ‘Jonathan Sings Larson,’ which was released by PS Classics in 2007. Larson wrote it for his futuristic dystopian musical ‘Superbia”, which never received a full production but it did receive developmental readings. While it was a major disappointment that ‘Superbia’ was never produced, a silver lining is that in various ways, the show led Larson both to ‘tick, tick… BOOM!’ and to ‘Rent,’ where he united musical theater and pop music in ways he’d become experienced doing while writing ‘Superbia.’ The song is an “I Want” song for ‘Superbia’s’ protagonist, Josh, who is an inventor, but a number of the lyrics seem to relate directly to Larson’s own journey as an artist.”
“Casual Sex, Pizza, and Beer”: “A silly, frisky ode to the three things named in the song’s title, this number gives us an opportunity to see the playful side of Larson’s output and enjoy a light moment with our company before we venture into more serious territory. We strove in the musical to show all sides of Larson, who was not a saint, but an imperfect, sometimes-silly human, just like all of us.”
“Valentine’s Day”: “This is one of Larson’s favorite songs that he ever wrote. He was so proud of the song that he kept trying to find a place for it in different projects. After initially writing ‘Valentine’s Day’ for a 1987 student musical called ‘Prostate of the Union’ that he collaborated on with Michael Lindsay for Adelphi University, where he was an alum, Larson also put ‘Valentine’s Day’ into several early drafts of ‘Rent’ and even tried adding it to ‘tick, tick… BOOM!’ at one point as well. When ‘Valentine’s Day’ was part of ‘Rent,’ it was initially sung by Mimi to tell her own backstory as part of Maureen’s protest performance. To Larson’s credit, even though he loved ‘Valentine’s Day’, he agreed it wasn’t quite working in ‘Rent’ and he cut it, although he was very eager for more people to hear it.”
“Iron Mike”: “A few of the songs in our musical were written by Larson for Naked Angels theater company. Larson and his friends were on the outskirts of the acclaimed, popular group, and he was honored when asked to contribute a song to one of their shows. Larson wrote this seafaring protest song about the Exxon Valdez oil spill. One heartbreaking discovery that I made was that it wasn’t actually performed in the 1990 Naked Angels Earth Day show that it was written for. As far as we know, the song was never performed publicly until ‘The Jonathan Larson Project.’”
“Love Heals”: I first became familiar with ‘Love Heals’ while listening to Sherie Rene Scott’s 2000 solo album ‘Men I’ve Had.’ It was also heard under the credits of the ‘Rent’ movie in 2005. Larson wrote ‘Love Heals’ as an anthem for the foundation of the same name, which was founded in the name of Alison Gertz to promote AIDS education. Gertz was one of several of Larson’s friends who tragically died at young ages of AIDS in the early 1990s. Larson paid tribute to these friends in ‘Rent.’ He also penned this gorgeous song with the hopes that it could be used to raise money for the foundation. It was saved on one of Larson’s floppy disks as ‘Whitney Lyric,’ a clue that he dreamed of Whitney Houston recording the song.”
Through June 1 at the Orpheum Theatre, 126 2nd Ave., thejonathanlarsonproject.com.
