How long would you sacrifice your financial security to pursue your dream career, with no guarantee you’d ever attain it?
Jonathan Larson, best known for his contributions to the development of the Broadway musical “Rent,” explored that question in 1990 with a semiautobiographical, one-man musical that he initially billed as “Boho Days.” Several revisions later, he renamed it and performed it as “Tick, Tick … Boom!”
Larson died suddenly in 1996. Following his death, playwright David Auburn restructured “Tick Tick … Boom!” into a three-actor musical, with one actor playing Larson’s alter ego and the other two playing all the other characters. That version opened off-Broadway in 2001; subsequent productions were presented across the United States, Europe and East Asia. In 2021, Lin-Manuel Miranda directed a film adaptation with a much larger cast that streamed on Netflix.
Hawaii will see the three-person treatment of Larson’s story when “Tick, Tick … Boom!” opens March 9 at Manoa Valley Theatre. Hawaii theater veteran Mathias Maas, director and choreographer of the MVT production, says it’s a show he’s been looking forward to doing.
“It’s on a short list of shows that I was very excited about and that I thought would be good to do in the space,” Maas said recently. “I’m really interested in the three-person rock opera. It’s a small cast. I think that it’s super visceral material. I mean, you really feel Jonathan Larson’s angst on the way of turning 30 and being an artist and still creative and wondering ‘Should I be continuing doing this?’ It’s just a good story.”
Maas sees the question at the heart of the story — How long do you pursue a dream career? — as being as relevant today as when Larson first brought it to the public more than 30 years ago.
“He really struggles with being one time considered promising, and now he doesn’t know if he’s living up to that title that was given to him. ‘Do I keep going on or do I abandon ship?’ His friends have found themselves jobs that are more sustainable, more financially rewarding, and he looks down on them (for doing that) through most of the show. … Do you continue being a fighter for your cause or do you settle down and make some smart choices for the future?”
With the unexpected always a wild card in live theater, Maas is doing the show with two complete casts of three people each. Taj Gutierrez will star as Jon, alongside Kimo Kaona and Emily North on opening night and for most of the run; Moku Durant will star as Jon, with Ian Severino and Bianca Tubolino, on Saturday matinees and on March 17 and 19.
“It’s mostly to help cover illness because there’s no ensemble to step into a role, and every theater in the last few years has dealt with having to cover roles for whatever reason,” Maas said. “But it was just a way to offer more actors opportunities to play these parts, and we have the (talent) pool available that was excited and interested in the show.”
Musical director Jenny Shiroma describes working with two complete and separate casts in one show as an unusual and enjoyable challenge.
“They’re each doing their own interpretation of it, doing different things musically, doing a little bit of different staging and just everything about it,” Shiroma said. “People should come see both casts because they’re different shows.”
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“Tick, Tick … Boom!”
>> Where: Manoa Valley Theatre, 2833 E. Manoa Rd.
>> When: 7:30 p.m. March 9; continues 7:30 p.m. Thursday to Saturday, and 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, through March 26.
>> Tickets: $42, adults; $37, seniors, military and subscribers; and $24 for ages 13-25.
>> Info: 808-988-6131 or manoavalleytheatre.com
