Jonathan Larson
American composer and lyricistWikipedia
59
MENTIONS
25
EPISODES
23
PODCASTS
Search complete. 59 mentions across 25 episodes found for "Jonathan Larson".
Sep 25, 2026
Michael ZerulnikGUEST
I think of Keith Haring and the work that he did, public art to bring awareness to HIV and AIDS.
Michael ZerulnikGUEST
Or in the 90s, Jonathan Larson, who wrote Rent, and that was a musical.
Michael ZerulnikGUEST
So using the theatrical arts to bring awareness and create opportunities for people to access a space they may not have been in.
Michael ZerulnikGUEST
And that was informed by La Boheme from the 1800s.
ShannonHOST
line but and i remember being like this is cool anyway and then like going along with my life like it just didn't
ErikHOST
yeah it just didn't sort of penetrate further yeah um So yeah, Rent, for those of you who don't know, which I don't know how you couldn't, but if you don't, obviously written by Jonathan Larson.
ErikHOST
Originally, a playwright named Billy Aronson had conceived something that eventually became Rent.
ErikHOST
He had brought Larson on board.
ErikHOST
And unlike many other people who tried to do that, Larson succeeded, right? He fully revived the idea of a rock musical that had kind of died a death after hair, right? Hair was big, and then people tried to do hair again, and it never really took off, and Broadway went the very much Sondheim-y route, and then it went the Lloyd Webber-y route, and then in the mid-90s, finally, Rent comes and says, no, we can do a rock band on stage and have a...
ErikHOST
Pretty much entirely rock score.
ErikHOST
And it's also just one of the most impossible to know things, whether Rent would have become Rent if it had not been for the very tragic death of Jonathan Larson.
ErikHOST
Yeah.
SamHOST
This actor received an Academy Award nomination.
SamHOST
for portraying the late Jonathan Larson in a 2021 musical film directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
SamHOST
Who am I talking about? All right, number two.
SamHOST
Featuring a father and daughter, this 1930 painting by Grant Wood was named for the architectural style of the house depicted in the background.
SamHOST
Here we go.
SamHOST
Here we go.
SamHOST
Number one, this actor received an Academy Award nomination for portraying the late Jonathan Larson in a 2021 musical film directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
SamHOST
Yeah, I heard Alana loves musicals, so, you know, tried to work some of that in.
speaker_1HOST
Exactly.
speaker_1HOST
It's a way to honor Jonathan Larson's legacy, especially since he wrote it for friends struggling with HIV.
speaker_2HOST
That brings a whole new depth to the performance.
speaker_2HOST
It's not just entertainment.
Rachel Griffin AccursoGUEST
And you can look at composers and see that they work tirelessly for so long.
Rachel Griffin AccursoGUEST
I looked at the rent boxes, Jonathan Larson, and how much he worked on rent.
Rachel Griffin AccursoGUEST
And he did the math by hand for 525,600 minutes.
Rachel Griffin AccursoGUEST
Really? Yeah, he did the math by hand.
Robert MillerHOST
As a singer-songwriter, she released her debut EP in 2016.
Robert MillerHOST
As an actress, she's appeared in the film Tick, Tick, Boom! about Jonathan Larson, as well as the off-Broadway productions of White Girl in Danger and Sarah Silverman's The Bedwetter.
Robert MillerHOST
How about all of that? And in the middle or thereabouts, Lauren and I are going to do what I call a song fest.
Robert MillerHOST
I've asked her to send me a handful of her best works, which she has done.
15 MINS LATER
Robert MillerHOST
Yes.
Robert MillerHOST
Talk about another success story.
Robert MillerHOST
This is about Jonathan Larson who wrote Rent and then tragically passed away before it opened up and all of that good stuff.
Robert MillerHOST
But the show or the movie that came out of it was terrific.
MattHOST
And then became a musical.
JessHOST
So to give you a bit of a background, Rent the Musical, as written by Jonathan Larson, which was music, lyrics, and book, all Jonathan Larson, was loosely based on the 1896 opera La Boheme, which makes a lot of sense.
MattHOST
Yeah.
JessHOST
It is set in the Lower East Village during the Bohemian Alphabet City days.
JessHOST
As your wife may or may not be.
MattHOST
Yeah.
JessHOST
Interestingly enough, Rent the Movie is an American musical drama film directed by Chris Columbus that was released in 2005 and is the adaptation of Jonathan Larson's 1996 Broadway musical of the same name.
MattHOST
Yeah.
AJHOST
Oh God.
AJHOST
No, I love I love the way he writes his melodies and the way that he tells his stories like I think they're really it almost kind of reminds me of Jonathan Larson style in a way very like different musically but like just sonically I feel like they're very similar right is that Is that the right term?
SarahHOST
I don't know what sonically means.
SarahHOST
Oh, the way you just were like, I
Luke SheperdGUEST
Every time I look at his stuff on paper versus just hearing the album or seeing it on stage, it impresses me in a different way looking at it and breaking it down and analyzing it because he is a very smart composer.
Luke SheperdGUEST
The way he sets text on the melody is very Sondheim in a lot of ways.
Luke SheperdGUEST
Jonathan Larson, similar.
Luke SheperdGUEST
I mean, both of them kind of come from that Sondheim school where they really tried to make the text land naturally along the melody line.
Ariana DeBoseGUEST
Um, continuing.
Monica LewinskyHOST
Well, and ch- and changed the way, I think in the same way, um, that Jonathan Larson changed-
Ariana DeBoseGUEST
Yeah
Monica LewinskyHOST
...
Lindsay EricksonHOST
And I'm very interested to see how it has improved, hopefully tremendously.
Lindsay EricksonHOST
And, you know, there's things like Jonathan Larson's story with Rent.
Lindsay EricksonHOST
And of course, astronomically different than Dolly Parton's story.
Lindsay EricksonHOST
But he passed away right before his musical came to Broadway as well.
15 more episodes mention Jonathan Larson.
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