Larson was born in White Plains, New York, and had a pretty idyllic, middle-class Jewish upbringing with his parents Nan (Nanette) and Allen, and his older sister, Julie. The playwright was very much shaped by his Jewish collaborators and supporters - but before that, by his Jewish parents and sister. Larson wrote over 200 songs in his lifetime before dying at age 35 from an aortic dissection, believed to have been caused by an undiagnosed case of Marfan syndrome. The movie, a semi-fictionalized version of the “Rent” playwright’s life, offers plenty of Yiddishkeit, including mentions of challah and Kaddish and great Jewish actors in Jewish roles - including Judith Light as Jonathan’s agent and Joel Grey as his father, Allen.īut the real-life story of Larson is just as worthy of our attention. The new movie “Tick, Tick… Boom!,” a film adaptation of Jewish playwright Jonathan Larson’s 1990 musical directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda and starring Andrew Garfield, opened on November 12, and is about to land on Netflix this week.
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