Pursuing the Muse Against the Clock (Lin-Manuel Miranda Pays Tribute to Jonathan Larson)
Jan. 16, 1997, Eastern Standard Time.
It is my 17th birthday, and my girlfriend Meredith has surprised me with tickets to see “Rent” by Jonathan Larson on Broadway. We climb to our seats in the last row of the second mezzanine of the Nederlander Theater. Despite a young lifetime of memorized cast albums, I haven’t seen many musicals on Broadway: “Les Misérables,” “Phantom,” “Cats,” that’s about it. The house lights go down, and from this moment on, nothing is ever the same again.
Everyone has their own coping mechanisms for surviving high school: Mine was showing up every day with a VHS camcorder and making movies, because I found it so much easier than actually talking to other kids. It’s much easier to say, “I’m making a movie, and I have a part for you” than “Wanna hang out?” So you can imagine my elation at seeing a character with a camera glued to his hand — Mark Cohen (played by Anthony Rapp), the friend who films everything. The one who stands outside the frame. That was me. When his best friend, Roger, challenges him, singing, “You pretend to create and observe when you really detach from being alive,” it felt like a punch in the gut.
This is truly a beautiful article. Thank you Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jonathan Larson. (x)
