Quarter-Life Crises Explode in ‘Tick, Tick...BOOM!’

Ask any senior what his or her plans are for next year and you’re likely to see an expression that’s part frustration, part confusion, but mostly panic. Centering on the life of a struggling composer, Jonathan Larson’s play “Tick, Tick…BOOM!” channels all these emotions in full force. The play will run Dec. 6-16 in the Adams Pool Theatre.

Larson, who is most famous for writing the popular musical “RENT,” largely based this earlier work on his own experiences.

“What makes this show amazing is the fact that this play is really a window into the mind of one of the 20th-century’s great composers, and somebody who was a very unique, very powerful character,” says director Sean P. Bala ’09. “He has had a very large impact on theater in particular, but also American culture in general.”

Larson originally staged “Tick, Tick…BOOM!” as a “rock monologue.” After his early death, his family commissioned David Auburn, the author of “Proof,” to re-arrange the script for a three-person cast. Because the show was based on Larson’s monologue, there are very few stage directions or instructions for other aspects of the production, like lighting or set design in the script. The Pool Theatre production sees that absence as an opportunity.

“It really allows a group of people to be very creative, which is what I think the author would have really wanted,” says Bala.

Larson wrote the show during a very tumultuous period of his life. One of his shows had just failed, his girlfriend had left him, and one of his best friends had just been diagnosed with AIDS.

“It feels like something that he wrote in this very intense emotional period,” says Emily B. Hecht ’11, who takes on several roles in the show. “It feels like something very real and very simply done—something that you could really see coming out of one person’s mind.”

Such a play might seem self-indulgent, but those involved in the production believe that the personal crisis that Jon faces in the play will resonate with Harvard students.

“I think it’ll speak to Harvard audiences in a very big way,” says Bala. “I think that many people are struggling with this sort of question of, ‘What do I want to do with my life, and where do I want to go in the future?’”

Members of the cast agree, and say that some of them felt they were already facing similar situations in their own lives.

“I’m a junior, so everyone in my class is sort of grubbing for internships and all that, and so it’s something which you kind of see a lot of,” says Trevor G. Frankel ’09, who plays a number of characters in the show.

Part of Jon’s crisis in the play is heightened by the approach of his thirtieth birthday. Even though Derek S. Mueller ’10, who plays Jon, is a full decade younger than his character, he is starting to feel the same pressure already.

“I had a sort of pre-20 crisis the other day, because in the middle of November I turned 20, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m turning 20, and I’m no longer a kid, and I need to figure out what my life is about,’” says Mueller.

“Twenty is such a terrible age,” he added. “You’re already an adult but you still can’t buy alcohol.”