Seeing Jonathan Larson’s (1960-1996) notes was a dream come true. For those of us who grew up in 1990s New York, Rent was the musical. My mother took me to see it on Broadway; afterwards, I listened to the CD so many times, I still know every song by heart. When I learned that Larson’s notes were at the Library of Congress, I had to go see them!
Larson’s devotion to musical theater is evident on every page of his notes. He was utterly absorbed in his work. And he believed in his craft so thoroughly that he lived in an unheated New York City apartment: he needed time to write more than he needed money.1
Jonathan also died in this apartment—suddenly from an aortic aneurysm, probably as a result of Marfan Syndrome. Rent would debut the following day, without its creator.
Rent’s message of love in the face of mortality would become all the more poignant. As Jonathan’s mother said:
There certainly is a recurring theme [in Jonathan’s work] of “make the most of the time that you’ve got.” And for him [Jonathan], I’m happy to say that I think he did.2
For a sense of Jonathan’s vivacity, watch his 5-minute performance of 30/90 from his one-man show, Tick Tick Boom (1991)3:
I saw this energy in Jonathan’s notes for Rent—his absolute commitment to art, and the brilliant workings of his mind.
So let’s take a look at Larson’s notes as he created the Pulitzer-Prize and Tony-Award-winning musical, Rent.
Larson’s Notes from the Beginning of Rent
Rent, the show, begins with two roommates, Mark and Roger, burning flyers to heat their apartment and declaring they won’t pay rent (because they have no money).
Watch this 30 second clip of the title song, sung by original cast members, Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal:
Rent is a remake of Puccini’s La Bohème and tells the story of the Lower East Side in the 1990s as AIDS ravaged the community. It is a story about misfits finding love, creatives finding their voices, and above all, that there is “no day but today.”
The original idea to remake La Bohème came from Billy Aronson who teamed up with Larson because he needed someone to write the music. The project hobbled along and was ultimately put on hold. This is how Jonathan told the story:
Two years later a number of my friends, men and women, were finding out they were HIV-positive. I was devastated, and needed to do something. I decided to ask Billy if he would let me continue by myself, and he was very cool about it.4
In one of Larson’s first notes for what would become Rent, he considers Puccini’s characters, Rudolpho and Mimi. Larson wonders
who are Rudolpho + Mimi today [?]
Note too, how Roger (Rudolpho) and Mimi’s candle scene is there from the beginning because it was in Puccini’s opera.
Mimi has an unlit candle
She drops something on the floor
Gets stash—shoots up
Seduces—affirmation pr[a]y[e]r
Rent’s first producers would describe the candle scene as the moment they knew they had to support Larson’s show: in it they saw a rare mix of ingenious storytelling with brilliant song-writing. Here is the scene, performed by the 2008 Broadway cast:
I saw over 2,000 pages of Larson’s notes on Rent. There is quite a lot to explore. Let’s begin with how Larson re-imagined La Bohème’s characters as inhabitants of the Lower East Side of the ‘90s.
Larson’s Notes on Rent’s Characters
The following note shows how Larson thought about transposing Puccini’s characters.5 The hearts represent romantic connections. I’ve put Rent’s characters’ names in brackets.
Love = fire = disease = art = life
Rodolpho poet = monologist? Rock singer [Roger]
❤︎
Mimi embroiderer =
Marcello painter = filmmaker [Mark]
❤︎
Musetta — feminist —activist-dupe—[Maureen]
❤︎
Alcindoro
Schaunard = musician = jazz artist [Angel Dumott Schunard]
❤︎
Colline [Tom Collins]
Benoît—landlord = landlord [Benjamin "Benny" Coffin III]
Anarchists All
Act up
For each of these characters, Larson wrote a one-page biography. Here is Roger’s:
Roger—
29- his last lover killed herself—after she found out she’d given him HIV+. He’s known for just 4 months. He’d stopped doing drugs before he found out. Hasn’t gone back to ‘the Program’
Family background—from a military family—who moved around a lot —the way he made friends was through his singing + his good looks. Parents are indifferent to his career, life—He will occasionally go home for Christmas (now its Atlanta)—but doesn’t want to tell them his news (HIV+) this year. Has one younger sisters who’s a senior in college out in California—hasn’t told her—loves to procrastinate…always picked up women before—or at least went out flirting—Now he feels a like a threat—a walking time bomb—Feels like he’ll never make love again—Hates the moonlight—reminds him of Betina.
Sings + writes songs for an atonal band—the NOMADS who’s claim to fame is that they never play.6
Larson thinks of his characters in terms of love—what does love mean for each of them? What do they care about? In a later note he sketches the following:
Love Finding Love + Beauty
Looking for Beauty + Love—
The
Beauty, Warmth, Shelter
Compassion, Justice, Wit
Roger—Lovers
Mimi-Lovers. —Love is in their art. Art of Love
Maureen—Brilliant Justice more imp[ortant] than Art
Mark—Brilliant - Art is everything
Collins—Genius - theories is everything
Angel—Primitive talent
Joanne—Envious of talent
Coffin—love of money
Larson’s Notes for “Seasons of Love”
When it comes to love (and life), Rent makes it clear that our time is limited. And Larson most clearly explores the relationship between time and love in “Seasons of Love.” Larson’s notes are filled with scribbles working through this dynamic.
Living
Against the clock—
Who knows what tomorrow
will bring—
A year in the life—
Lived
A life in a year—
Rent takes place over the span of a single year—so the question arises, how do you measure a year? How do you measure love? How do you measure a life? While meditating on this topic, Larson writes a note to himself to “find out the lifespan of a fly.”7 He spends several pages of notes playing with variations on this theme:
Year in the life
Live a life in a year
A lot can happen in a year
Calendar
365 days
At the end of the page, Larson does some math:
1 y[ea]r
4 seasons
12 months
52 weeks
365 days
8760 hours
525,600 minutes
31,536,000 seconds
If you’re familiar with “Seasons of Love,” you’ll know which number Larson chose.
I’ll leave you with this remarkable song performed by the 2008 Broadway cast, joined by the original cast and others who worked with Jonathan when Rent was first produced at the New York Theater Workshop (including director Michael Greif). It is nothing but pure heart.
You can watch the entire production for free here.
I could write 365 more posts on Rent. Help me narrow it down for this week’s postscript: which song are you most interested in learning more about?
Notes on Jonathan Larson’s Notes
There’s no such thing as an overnight success: When Jonathan’s sister, Julie, accepted a 1996 Tony award for him, she said, “It took Jonny 15 years of really hard work to become an overnight success.” Larson’s notes show us how much work he poured into his craft—before Rent he labored on other scores (like Supurbia and Tick, Tick… Boom). He spent most of his life laboring in obscurity. We often only see the dazzling success, but there’s almost always years (if not decades) of hard work behind it.
Be curious: I love how Jonathan thought through his characters multiple times in his notes. He wanted to understand their backstories and motivations so he could build more realistic characters.
The best stories are old: Rent is an old story told in a cutting-edge way. Larson brilliantly took the dramatic tensions of Puccini’s La Bohème and transposed them into his own contemporary moment.
Noted is fueled by you. Your ❤️’s and comments inspire me. As always, I would love to know your thoughts.
Till Monday,
P.S.
Paid subscribers, look out for more on Jonathan Larson later this week—and don’t forget to vote in the poll!
Jonathan lived in a 5th-floor walk up at 508 Greenwich Street. For those unfamiliar with NYC lingo, a walk up just means that there’s no elevator. He worked several days a week at the Moonlight diner, devoting the rest of his time to his art.
Quoted in No Day But Today: The Story of ‘Rent’, dir. by Jeffrey Schwartz, 2006.
Watch more of Larson’s Tick Tick Boom here. You can also watch the movie Lin Manuel Miranda made from the score in 2021.
Interview with Jonathan Larson, Jonathan Larson Talks About His Writing Process and Making ‘Rent’ .
Larson worked from Franco Zeffirelli's staging of Puccini’s opera and took extensive notes on it (Box 13, folder 6).
Larson Papers, Library of Congress, Box 13, Folder 6, 69.
Larson Papers, Library of Congress, Box 12, Folder 1.
There's something particularly special about a playwright's notes in that the words progress and cohere not just to other words but to actual real life performances. Thanks for this Jillian.
Thanks for sharing this awesome deep dive into Jonathan Larson's world and the making of Rent! It's crazy to think about how much dedication Larson poured into his art, especially when you consider he lived in an unheated apartment just to have more time to write. I love how Larson took the classic story of La Bohème and gave it this super cool '90s New York vibe, all while tackling really important themes like love, creativity, and the AIDS crisis. It's amazing how his notes and sketches show just how much thought he put into every character and every scene.
And "Seasons of Love" - what a song, right? What's your favorite Rent song? I can't decide between "Seasons of Love" and "La Vie Bohème"!