Jonathon Larson

About him-

Jonathon Larson was born on the 4th February 1960 and he was born in White Plains, New York. He was born into a Jewish family as both of his parents were Jewish. He started in the music world from a young ages because when he was a young boy he used to play the trumpet and the tuba. Along with playing these instruments he also used to sing in his schools choir. When Larson started to go to high school he started acting and was in many school productions with lead roles. Larson had a different interest to other teenagers, he was interested in the composer Stephen Sondheim. In college he also started to compose music which was then what lead him into his career. Jonathon Larson was then a play writer and composer. He has now got many awards including a Pulitzer for drama (Rent), a Tony awards for best musical (rent) and also a Drama desk outstanding musical which was also for Rent.

His style-

Jonathon Larson says that his style is rock and roll at heart but he is influenced by contemporary music. He wanted to update musical theatre and make it so younger audiences will want to come watch shows and he was the on to start it off.

Rent, the musical-

Rent the musical is based on the opera 'La Boheme'. The musical is a rock musical. The musical is about a group of young artist in New York who are trying to survive life in New York City. Jonathon Larson concentrated on composing Rent in the early 1990s. Rent was first seen in a workshop production at New York Theatre Workshop in 1993. Larson died suddenly the night before the Off-broadway premier. When Rent was finally moved to broadway it gained many different awards including tony awards. Larson got a lot of influences from the opera 'La Boheme', some of the songs are based on the same thing but sound differnt. Overall Rent the musical was a big hit and because it gained so many awards it made more and more people want to go see it!