Editing Jonathan Larson (section)

===''Tick, Tick... Boom!''===
{{main|Tick, Tick... Boom!}}
His next work, completed in 1991, was an autobiographical "rock monologue" entitled ''30/90'', which was later renamed ''Boho Days'' and finally titled ''[[Tick, Tick... Boom!]]'' This piece, written for only Larson with a piano and rock band, drew on his feelings of rejection caused by the disappointment of ''Superbia''. The show was performed off-Broadway at the Village Gate in [[Greenwich Village]], then at the [[Second Stage Theater]] on the [[Upper West Side]]. Both of these productions were produced by Victoria Leacock.{{cn|date=March 2025}} The producer [[Jeffrey Seller]] saw a reading of ''Boho Days'' and expressed interest in producing Larson's musicals. After Larson's death, Victoria Leacock and Robyn Goodman, with the permission of the Larson family, brought in playwright David Auburn to go through Larson’s five versions of the rock monologue, and expand it for three actors. Stephen Oremus was hired to orchestrate and be the musical director, as he had already been working on the tour of ''RENT''. The stage version premiered off-Broadway in 2001 and starred [[Raúl Esparza]] as Larson, a performance for which he earned an [[Obie Award]]. It has since been produced on a West End theatre. A [[Tick, Tick... Boom! (film)|film adaptation of ''tick, tick... BOOM!'']], directed by [[Lin-Manuel Miranda]] and starring [[Andrew Garfield]] (in an [[94th Academy Awards#Winners and nominees|Academy Award nominated]] performance) as Larson, with a rewritten script by [[Steven Levenson]] was released on [[Netflix]] on November 12, 2021.

In 1992, Larson collaborated with fellow composer/lyricists [[Rusty Magee]], Bob Golden, Paul Scott Goodman, and Jeremy Roberts on ''Sacred Cows,'' which was devised and pitched to television networks as a weekly anthology with each episode taking a different Biblical or mythological story and giving it a '90s celebrity twist. The project was shelved due to scheduling conflicts among the five composers but resurfaced over 20 years later in a six-page ''[[Playbill]]'' article. The demo for ''Sacred Cows'' was released on iTunes.<ref>{{cite news | title=How the Feverish Imaginations of Jonathan Larson, Rusty Magee and Friends Birthed the Musical 'Sacred Cows' | url=https://www.playbill.com/article/how-the-feverish-imaginations-of-jonathan-larson-rusty-magee-and-friends-birthed-the-musical-sacred-cows-com-203033 | last=Collis | first=Jonathon | work=[[Playbill]] | date=March 4, 2013 | access-date=April 2, 2022 | archive-date=April 2, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220402051848/https://www.playbill.com/article/how-the-feverish-imaginations-of-jonathan-larson-rusty-magee-and-friends-birthed-the-musical-sacred-cows-com-203033 | url-status=live }}</ref>

Larson's strongest musical theatre influence was [[Stephen Sondheim]], with whom he corresponded, and to whom he occasionally submitted his work for review. One ''tick, tick... BOOM!'' song, called "Sunday," is a homage to Sondheim, who supported Larson, staying close to the melody and lyrics of Sondheim's own song of the same title but turning it from a manifesto about art into a waiter's lament. Sondheim wrote several letters of recommendation for Larson to various producers. Larson later won the Stephen Sondheim Award.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.sigtheatre.org/boheme/larson-and-sondheim/ | title=To Sontag, to Sondheim, to anything taboo! | work=[[Signature Theatre (Arlington, Virginia)|Signature Theatre]] | access-date=April 1, 2022 | archive-date=January 29, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220129012937/https://www.sigtheatre.org/boheme/larson-and-sondheim/ | url-status=live }}</ref>

In addition to his three larger theatrical pieces written before ''Rent'', Larson also wrote music for ''[[J.P. Morgan Saves the Nation]]'';<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/07/arts/last-chance.html | title=Last Chance | work=[[The New York Times]] | date=July 7, 1995 | access-date=April 1, 2022 | archive-date=April 1, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220401035817/https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/07/arts/last-chance.html | url-status=live }}</ref> numerous individual numbers; music for ''[[Sesame Street]]''; music for the children's book cassettes of ''An American Tail'' and ''The Land Before Time''; music for ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' magazine publisher [[Jann Wenner]]; a musical called ''[[Mowgli (musical)|Mowgli]]''; and four songs for the children's video ''[[Away We Go! (children's video)|Away We Go!]]'', which he also conceived with collaborator and composer Bob Golden and directed. He performed in [[John MacLachlan Gray]]'s musical ''[[Billy Bishop Goes to War]]'', which starred his close friend actor [[Roger Bart]]. For his early works, Larson won a grant and award from the [[American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers]] and the [[Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Theatre Foundation]]'s Commendation Award.<ref name=Life>{{Cite news | last=Pacheco | first=Patrick | title=Life, Death and 'Rent' | url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-04-14-ca-58265-story.html | work=[[Los Angeles Times]] | date=April 14, 1996 | url-access=limited | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201022072045/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-04-14-ca-58265-story.html | archive-date=October 22, 2020 | url-status=live}}</ref>