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Victoria Leacock broadway.com July 18, 2001 |
About the author: Victoria Leacock worked with Jonathan Larson for over a decade. She produced his futuristic rock musical Superbia in concert at The Village Gate, tick, tick,... BOOM! at Second Stage, the Village Gate and the New York Theatre Workshop and was involved with the early development of Rent. As a director, her films include Kiki and Herb: Total Eclipse of the Heart and The Dead Speak. Her book Signature Flowers: A Revealing Collection of Celebrity Drawings has over 100 flowers by artists. She is a co-founder of Love Heals, the Alison Gertz Foundation for AIDS Education. Here, Leacock recounts the personal journey she took producing Larson's tick, tick...BOOM! We all have clocks that tick in our heads at certain times in our lives. My first noticeable tick was when my mother died when I was 16. I had to grasp the concept of death and finality. Another tick was when I met Jonathan Larson. My first BOOM! was when Jonathan died. I was raised in Manhattan by my mother, who was bedridden, and it was she who introduced me to the delights and escape of theater. By the time I was a teenager I had seen the second half of every show on Broadway. I pursued acting, tap dancing, photography, and even published a $1.00 a copy magazine about Broadway named Curtain Call. I first saw Jonathan Larson onstage when we were both studying in the Theater Department of Adelphi University in 1981. He was being crucified as he portrayed Christ in Godspell. He looked sweet. He became one of my best friends and closest collaborators. After a year and a half at Adelphi, I realized I would never be a great actress and dropped out. Jon had just moved to the city after graduating and had changed his focus from acting to composing. For the next 10 years, he would work as a waiter and write during the day. I breezed through a dozen different jobs including working for Joseph Papp at the Public Theater and Ted Mann at Circle in the Square. During much of that time I served as Jonathan’s creative sounding board, producer and all around cheerleader. Jon and I believed that if no one else would do his shows, we would. We had a committed and enduring friendship until his untimely death in 1996. After his death and the traumatic success of Rent, I stood back in shock and expectation and waited for others to step forward to produce his work. I waited and waited. I waited for four years. Since Jonathan’s death, I couldn’t stop feeling an incredible frustration for him. Didn’t people know he had other shows and had written hundreds of songs? It seemed to me that the powers that be were content with the dramatic, sad story that led to Rent. It was driving me crazy. In the summer of 2000, I was at lunch with producer Robyn Goodman discussing the difficulties of producing. We had first met in 1990 when we produced a workshop of Jonathan’s Boho Days (later he renamed it tick, tick ... BOOM!) at Second Stage, where she was the co-artistic director. We talked about Jon’s autobiographical rock monologue and how it paints a vivid picture of the struggle to produce original works. Over the years, whenever I mentioned tick, tick ... BOOM! to the Larson family, they always reacted with a wince. The thought of anyone else besides Jonathan performing the role of Jonathan only underscored the very real loss of their son. With the fifth anniversary of Rent fast approaching and Al and Nan Larson celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, time was passing. I thought that they might be more receptive to seeing tick, tick...BOOM! onstage. After much discussion, Robyn and I were given their blessing—but with their blessing came another tick: the tick of the responsibility of honoring Jon’s work. What followed was Herculean. Robyn had been working with Scott Schwartz on Bat Boy and in September, after our first lunch with him, it was apparent that he had a complete understanding of the journey in tick, tick...BOOM! We then decided to break the one actor/nine character monologue into a three performer/multi character piece and approached David Auburn (Proof) to work as the script consultant. David recognized the quality and originality of Jon’s music and autobiographical rant. David, Scott and brilliant musical director Stephen Oremus set to work on realizing Jon’s piece. As the piece was crystallizing, we searched downtown for the perfect theater and found the Jane Street Theatre, which I consider the physical embodiment of the inside of Jon’s head. All of our energies were then focused on finding an actor to embody the role of Jonathan (the character). We searched for two months and saw some of the most talented people in the country. Time was running out. When Raul Esparza auditioned, everything clicked. After his reading, Robyn found me in the bathroom crying. It was a good sign. We all agreed. Another tick. After Amy Spanger and Jerry Dixon agreed to complete our ensemble, we knew we had the perfect cast. Now we needed to get the show on its feet. We received a phone call from Bess Smith (who had seen the 1990 workshop), she and her partners Dede Harris and Lorie Cowen-Levy wanted to get involved. After one meeting, we became producing partners. We set out to use our diverse talents to get tick, tick…BOOM! on the map. Next came a whirlwind of rehearsals, marketing, merchandising, website construction, a record deal, foreign licensing—-and the crucial three-week preview period. On June 13, with Jon’s family and friends in attendance, we opened tick, tick…BOOM!. The boom reverberated for me in a new, positive way. As I sat in the dark the other night at the Jane Street Theatre watching tick, tick...BOOM!‘s first sold-out performance as a proud producer, a lyric reached out and punched me. “I
finally open up. It
was from “Come to Your Senses” and I finally did. Though I
won’t see Jonathan Larson again, I realized that he is still
present. A group of talented and caring collaborators have made
Jonathan’s work live; and therefore, he lives. |
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