These past few months, I have become obsessed with the movie Tick, Tick…Boom! For a variety of reasons.
- The music is amazing.
- I have a deep attachment to Jonathan Larson’s story.
I’ll detail these reasons further because they can be overwhelming on the surface level. I have always been a fan of musical scores. I loved the drama and the different styles of different musicals. It always interested me to see how they used music to move a story forward. It told you so much more about the characters than dialogue alone. I love when writers use music to propel the story forward instead of a pause in the events. Tick, Tick… Boom does this beautifully by using music written by Jonathan Larson to intertwine the parts he made up with his real life. It’s just done so seamlessly. That makes it so good to watch. The film is also so carefully put together that I could write an entire article about the number of easter eggs scattered throughout this movie, which makes the viewing for someone like me that much more meaningful.
Like many other kids who grew up in rural towns, I grew a deep attachment to the world of musical theatre. It started when I found a little musical called “RENT” that had a hypnotic score that I just fell in love with after being in a dark place in my life. It helped to bring me back to feeling like myself again. Unlike anything I had ever heard before, the music was so full of life that I wanted to dive back into my creative side after a significant dry spell. Further looking into the life and death of Jonathan Larson, I realized how I had not been living my life to the fullest by having other people define how I live. It gave me a new outlook on life. It became a cultural reset for me as I began this new journey of forgetting regret and making the most of my time. Tick, Tick…Boom brought all those feelings rushing back, which overwhelmed me with many emotions seeing how far I’ve come since my introduction to Jonathan Larson. It helped to relight the fire of creativity that I desperately needed.