In October of 2018, Broadway supper club Feinstein's/54 Below hosted 12 performances of
The Jonathan Larson Project, a show consisting of rarely or never-heard songs by the writer/composer of the now-classic, Pulitzer Prize-winning musical
Rent. Between the time that
Larson died suddenly of an undiagnosed heart problem the morning of
Rent's first preview in 1996 and the 2018 concerts, the only other noteworthy posthumous production of his work was the 2001 off-Broadway musical
Tick, Tick...BOOM! The Jonathan Larson Project collects songs that were cut from that show and from
Rent, material from the never-produced shows 1984 and Superbia, and miscellanea for revues and the pop industry. Despite a lack of narrative context for the songs, the tunes reveal themselves to be much more than second-rate discards for hardcore fans; rather, they're a boon for appreciators of
Larson's exhilarating, insightful style. That's thanks to the apparent consistency of
Larson's writing -- including his especially sharp lyrics -- as well as orchestrations and arrangements by
Charlie Rosen, who was working mostly from piano-and-voice demos from the Jonathan Larson Collection at the Library of Congress. Also not to be overlooked are performances by a quintet of Broadway alumni that includes
Nick Blaemire and
George Salazar from
Tick, Tick...BOOM!,
Krysta Rodriguez (
Spring Awakening,
The Addams Family),
Andy Mientus (NBC's
Smash,
Spring Awakening), and
Lauren Marcus (
Be More Chill). The show was conceived and directed by
Jennifer Ashley Tepper, a Broadway producer and Creative & Programming Director at Feinstein's/54 Below who spent years researching and compiling the project. She also co-produced the studio cast recording, which was tracked in November 2018 and released by Ghostlight Records the following year.