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Boho Days: The Wider Works of Jonathan Larson
“I’m writing one great song before I…”
When Jonathan Larson died, he left behind a musical poised to become a world-spanning phenomenon. When RENT struck, Larson became a legend - and his work legendary.
But legends and overnight successes are never spawned from nothing, and the story of how Jonathan Larson became a Tony Award winning composer and Pulitzer Prize winning dramatist has never been covered in depth - until now.
By looking at Larson’s entire 16-year output, Boho Days looks at not just how RENT and tick, tick… BOOM! came to life but where they came from - and how they really fit into Larson’s work as a whole.
Featuring new interviews with Larson’s creative and personal associates and extensive archival research, Boho Days demystifies the composer’s vision and advancement, offering fans new and old the full story of the man behind the musical which changed the world.
"I think Jonathan Larson would have really enjoyed reading this book. I wish he could have.”
--Barry Singer (Author EVER The Last Years of Musical Theater and Beyond)
"For those saying "Superbia revival when?" you should pick up the great @bohodaysbook by J. Collis, it's the most exacting and accurate accounting of Jonathan's creative output. There's SO MANY revisions of Superbia, it's a challenge. This book is THE Larson deep dive."
--Lin-Manuel Miranda (Composer/Lyricist HAMILTON, Director TICK, TICK...BOOM!)
When Jonathan Larson died, he left behind a musical poised to become a world-spanning phenomenon. When RENT struck, Larson became a legend - and his work legendary.
But legends and overnight successes are never spawned from nothing, and the story of how Jonathan Larson became a Tony Award winning composer and Pulitzer Prize winning dramatist has never been covered in depth - until now.
By looking at Larson’s entire 16-year output, Boho Days looks at not just how RENT and tick, tick… BOOM! came to life but where they came from - and how they really fit into Larson’s work as a whole.
Featuring new interviews with Larson’s creative and personal associates and extensive archival research, Boho Days demystifies the composer’s vision and advancement, offering fans new and old the full story of the man behind the musical which changed the world.
"I think Jonathan Larson would have really enjoyed reading this book. I wish he could have.”
--Barry Singer (Author EVER The Last Years of Musical Theater and Beyond)
"For those saying "Superbia revival when?" you should pick up the great @bohodaysbook by J. Collis, it's the most exacting and accurate accounting of Jonathan's creative output. There's SO MANY revisions of Superbia, it's a challenge. This book is THE Larson deep dive."
--Lin-Manuel Miranda (Composer/Lyricist HAMILTON, Director TICK, TICK...BOOM!)
- GenresNonfictionTheatre
386 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 17, 2018
39 people are currently reading
411 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
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February 16, 2024in the phase of my tick, tick… BOOM! obsession where i read a niche book about jonathon larson and make it everyone else’s problem
June 18, 2023
I love a good research paper and this read like one 🤩. It was very cool to read the different perspectives of various friends and family of Larson, detailing his childhood to his untimely death and the legacy of his work. While it was a little long in some sections, I appreciate the in depth look at Larson’s various works before his posthumous fame
June 16, 2022
I didn't even know this book existed until distressingly recently.
Jonathan Larson is best known for RENT, the pulitzer prize and Tony winning musical. Perhaps it's easier to say he's best known for the tragedy of RENT - dying before the first performance and never seeing the fruits of his labor pull off. His work inspired countless others, most notably nowadays likely Lin Manuel-Miranda and the genre-defying hit musical HAMILTON, etc. But that really wasn't all Larson was.
So much has been written about RENT, so little has been written about Larson himself. This book is the first of, hopefully, many, seeking to remedy that scarcity of information. J. Collis spent a lot of time going through the abundant materials at the Library of Congress that make up the whole of Larson's work. There are cassettes and floppy discs, notebooks and printed pages. Just sheet after sheet of work documenting Larson's career. Collis interviewed people who knew him - and those people wanted to talk.
The result of all of this is the most comprehensive book to date cataloguing Larson's career. It's a career that covers not just RENT, but Tick, Tick... BOOM!, Superbia, and J.P. Morgan Saves the Nation. It's a career that has cabaret songs, Sesame Street songs, jingles and pop songs. There's writing for children, and writing for friends and lovers. There's just so much.
It's astonishing that more hasn't been done with it, and I agree with Collis that more should be done with it. While it's a tragedy that Larson died so young it's also a tragedy that all the work he did do isn't better known. Hopefully, with Tick, Tick... Boom!'s success, more people will be curious to see more adapted.
In the meantime? This is a fantastic introduction to it all that even makes sense of the 8 different versions of Superbia that exist.
Jonathan Larson is best known for RENT, the pulitzer prize and Tony winning musical. Perhaps it's easier to say he's best known for the tragedy of RENT - dying before the first performance and never seeing the fruits of his labor pull off. His work inspired countless others, most notably nowadays likely Lin Manuel-Miranda and the genre-defying hit musical HAMILTON, etc. But that really wasn't all Larson was.
So much has been written about RENT, so little has been written about Larson himself. This book is the first of, hopefully, many, seeking to remedy that scarcity of information. J. Collis spent a lot of time going through the abundant materials at the Library of Congress that make up the whole of Larson's work. There are cassettes and floppy discs, notebooks and printed pages. Just sheet after sheet of work documenting Larson's career. Collis interviewed people who knew him - and those people wanted to talk.
The result of all of this is the most comprehensive book to date cataloguing Larson's career. It's a career that covers not just RENT, but Tick, Tick... BOOM!, Superbia, and J.P. Morgan Saves the Nation. It's a career that has cabaret songs, Sesame Street songs, jingles and pop songs. There's writing for children, and writing for friends and lovers. There's just so much.
It's astonishing that more hasn't been done with it, and I agree with Collis that more should be done with it. While it's a tragedy that Larson died so young it's also a tragedy that all the work he did do isn't better known. Hopefully, with Tick, Tick... Boom!'s success, more people will be curious to see more adapted.
In the meantime? This is a fantastic introduction to it all that even makes sense of the 8 different versions of Superbia that exist.
March 4, 2023
This was a stumble find, and I am very glad for it. There's a wealth of information here. This attempts to cover the full range of Larson's work. It goes from college projects to (of course) RENT. The author draws from notes and recordings Larson left behind as well as interviews with his friends and associates. Of particular interest to me were the sections in which Collis reflects on the work that was done after Larson died, such as fine-tuning RENT and developing tick, tick. . . BOOM! into a three-person piece from a solo show. I was aware of such efforts, but I had never really stopped to consider them. I also loved reading about the material that was cut from RENT as well as the ways in which the show generally developed. The character backstories are particularly interesting.
I generally enjoyed reading about his friends as well, particularly those who developed careers in theatre, such as Marin Mazzie and Roger Bart, who I was astonished to read was an inspiration for Roger in RENT.
A couple of years ago, I was (incredibly) able to see The Jonathan Larson Project at 54 Below. I fell hard for a couple of the songs, particularly Hosing the Furniture, and I was gratified to find a fairly large section devoted to it in this. It was also pretty cool to read so much about Valentine's Day. I was a little surprised that more of the songs from that event did not merit mention, though, at least in passing.
Overall, this is a book I am grateful to have, and certainly one I am grateful to have stumbled across.
I generally enjoyed reading about his friends as well, particularly those who developed careers in theatre, such as Marin Mazzie and Roger Bart, who I was astonished to read was an inspiration for Roger in RENT.
A couple of years ago, I was (incredibly) able to see The Jonathan Larson Project at 54 Below. I fell hard for a couple of the songs, particularly Hosing the Furniture, and I was gratified to find a fairly large section devoted to it in this. It was also pretty cool to read so much about Valentine's Day. I was a little surprised that more of the songs from that event did not merit mention, though, at least in passing.
Overall, this is a book I am grateful to have, and certainly one I am grateful to have stumbled across.
August 16, 2023
I truly believe that Jonathan Larson was an angel sent down from above to warn people of how the future of humanity will play out. He was extremely spot on when it came to the takeover of reality TV and people with no talent being famous. Jonathan wrote in his shows about how he was going to die, which is both creepy and fascinating. In my opinion, Jonathan has a strong spirit that continues to look down on his friends and family to this day.
Learning about Jonathan's early work was shocking! He had strong core beliefs that were surprising for a man living in the early 80s and 90s. He was very pro-LGBTQ (I mean he is the creator of RENT) and extremely anti-televangelism. He used his shows to spread his core beliefs and inspire people to think more critically about the world.
Hearing the stories about Jonathan from his loved ones made him become one of my idols! Jonathan was a passionate, loving, and positive person! The passion that he had for his work is something that I am envious of and hope to achieve with my future career. RENT was Jonathan's baby, and he literally put his heart and soul into that musical. Jonathan was also a deeply loving person. He loved everyone like family. He always had something positive to say about everyone he met (unless they were critiquing RENT, of course).
This book was eye-opening and made me even more obsessed with Jonathan Larson. The only reason I am not giving this book five stars is because of the writing. The writing felt flat and to matter of fact at times. Jonathan Larson was an innovator, and I believe he has inspired many generations.
Learning about Jonathan's early work was shocking! He had strong core beliefs that were surprising for a man living in the early 80s and 90s. He was very pro-LGBTQ (I mean he is the creator of RENT) and extremely anti-televangelism. He used his shows to spread his core beliefs and inspire people to think more critically about the world.
Hearing the stories about Jonathan from his loved ones made him become one of my idols! Jonathan was a passionate, loving, and positive person! The passion that he had for his work is something that I am envious of and hope to achieve with my future career. RENT was Jonathan's baby, and he literally put his heart and soul into that musical. Jonathan was also a deeply loving person. He loved everyone like family. He always had something positive to say about everyone he met (unless they were critiquing RENT, of course).
This book was eye-opening and made me even more obsessed with Jonathan Larson. The only reason I am not giving this book five stars is because of the writing. The writing felt flat and to matter of fact at times. Jonathan Larson was an innovator, and I believe he has inspired many generations.
December 19, 2021
I fell down the Jonathan Larson rabbit hole after enjoying LMM's Tick, Tick... BOOM! and decided to pick this up on a whim mid-deep dive. The chapters on the revision process for TT...B and RENT are interesting, but most of the book is devoted to Larson's other, lesser works, and frankly, everything else he did actually sounds pretty terrible. For example, there's an entire chapter about a biographical J.P. Morgan off-off-Broadway musical that was staged outdoors in the Financial District in a five-week run, described as follows:
In his rise to glory as the most powerful banker in American, Morgan... flirts with the temptations of greed and unchecked capitalism personified as a sultry female Devil. Surrounding him are period businessmen and a chorus of money girls, clad in skin-tight dollar-bill-print spandex.
Ummm... no thanks, I'll pass.
The book achieves what it sets out to do, but this should probably be reserved for Larson superfans only.
In his rise to glory as the most powerful banker in American, Morgan... flirts with the temptations of greed and unchecked capitalism personified as a sultry female Devil. Surrounding him are period businessmen and a chorus of money girls, clad in skin-tight dollar-bill-print spandex.
Ummm... no thanks, I'll pass.
The book achieves what it sets out to do, but this should probably be reserved for Larson superfans only.
July 9, 2023
A fabulous, extremely well-researched text on Jonathan Larson's creative endeavors besides tick tick...BOOM! and RENT. I really applaud the author for taking the time to dive deep into the resources and people Jonathan left behind, and allow me as a fan to learn even more about someone I've never known but relate to (and treasure) so deeply. There were a few grammatical/editorial mistakes, but these did not detract from the information itself at all. Also, I hope there can be another edition discussing tick tick... BOOM!'S 2021 movie, especially since it was directed by Lin Manuel-Miranda. Thank you for writing this!!!
October 16, 2024
Pretty overwhelming and nostalgic. I came of age late, 19 was the year for me, and I discovered Rent before learning its creator has died. It was an intense year overall for me (1999) that I will never fully process. This brought it back and then some, and obviously a lot of stuff I never knew in the first place. On top that, some insights into Jonathan's writing process which were genuinely helpful and inspirational to me as an ailing (but still, fleetingly optimistic) writer who is approaching 10 years past how old he was when he died (a fact that will always haunt me).
July 11, 2025
This is a wonderful book delving into the works of Jonathan Larson. Insightful, meticulously researched, it made me want to dive into the Library of Congress archive and experience the demos and materials mentioned.
January 4, 2022
gostosin
January 5, 2022
I loved the info about Tick Tick Boom, Rent, and Jonathan's personality but the pacing was slow
March 27, 2024
Jonathan Larson lives RENT free on my mind. This was an amazing job detailing the achievements of one of the most creative people of our generation.
February 15, 2025
4.6784*
July 31, 2025
very clinical
September 16, 2025
so interesting!!!! reading it makes me really think, wow this is what i want to do. i want to have this much passion and drive for theatre as larson.
October 6, 2025
The ultimate deep dive on all things Rent, Tick, tick…BOOM!, and everything before, after, and in-between. It’s dense but incredibly well researched.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews