Music Theatre was hard hit in 2020 by the pandemic (cue “Broadway” by Goo Goo Dolls on endless repeat). I was working at a theatre in March 2020 when there was a hopeful “maybe we’ll only have to close for a few weeks” air to the shutdown. Live theatres in North America are only starting to reopen and shows that hoped to make Tony runs in 2020 either never opened or are opening now. Movies were also affected, In the Heights and West Side Story, two Broadway musicals that got the big-budget movie treatments were supposed to come out in 2020. However, their studios chose to push their releases to 2021 in hopes they would be able to have a proper theatrical release. Music Theatre is resilient though, it waited out the years where film adaptations were out of favour, so it found a way to continue during the pandemic with people, both professionals and amateurs, taking to TikTok and Zoom to create internet musical showcases, some pro-shot productions were made available either for free or for a ticket price, and of course, there was the Disney+ release of pro-shot of Hamilton. However, the held studio releases of musicals have led 2021 to be a theatre kid’s dream. With a variety of options available, from the experimental Annette, the golden era West Side Story, or the contemporary In the Heights. tick, tick…BOOM! is the pop/rock musical that at its core is a love letter to music theatre. And that’s before you even count all the Broadway legends in the number, “Sunday.”
tick, tick… Boom! is adapted from the semi-autobiographical musical of the same name by composer and lyricist Jonathan Larson (of Rent fame) that chronicles a period of his life when he’s attempting to get a workshop of his musical SUPERBIA ready and get people to attend. Jonathan Larson (played by Andrew Garfield), a struggling creative working at a diner, believes that if the workshop goes well he will finally have a career in his dream profession. The script does such a good job of showing the highs and lows of the pursuit of creative passions. Especially the conversation he has with his agent (played by Judith Light) after his workshop.
Andrew Garfield was going to be in the Best Actor conversation for his performance in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but this performance is so magnetic it should be the one to beat. To have two great roles in one year is no small thing.
Spoilers Ahead:
One of the major plot points is Jonathan struggles to write an act two song for his female lead, something he’s known he’s needed since an early reading of SUPERBIA where Stephen Sondheim gave him that note. That was years ago, but Sondheim seeing promise in his musical helped him keep faith in his talent, in his dream, even as his agent stopped taking his calls, forcing him to cold-call producers himself in hopes they would show up to this workshop. And after his agent tells him that despite the positive response to his workshop because SUPERBIA‘s not producible, this project he’s worked on for years is over, and he has to start over. Jonathan’s ready to throw in the towel and give up on music theatre, take a corporate job, but a combination of a heart-to-heart with his friend dealing with something much bigger and a well-timed voicemail from Sondheim keeps him from throwing in the towel, and instead, he comes up with tick, tick… Boom!, the show the movie is based on and would later go on to create Rent. Little acts of support can make a big difference. On November 26th, Stephen Sondheim passed away. He really was a mentor of Jonathan and the director of tick, tick… Boom! Lin-Manuel Miranda. Stephen Sondheim’s first project was as a lyrist on West Side Story, a project he was encouraged to take by his mentor Oscar Hammerstein II, and the new film adaptation arrives in theatres this month. These two films paint a story of his life – from the mentee to the mentor.