Interview: Host James C. Nicola Honors Jonathan Larson's Lyrical Legacy at 92NY

Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer/lyricist Jonathan Larson’s profound impact on musical theater with Rent and Tick, Tick…Boom! is in the spotlight for Louder than Words: The Songs and Legacy of Jonathan Larson, the next show of the 2024/25 Lyrics & Lyricists™ season at The 92nd Street Y, New York. (The above photo of Larson at NYTW is provided courtesy of 92NY.) Artistic director and host James C. Nicola brings his singular insight and personal stories to 92NY, as one of Larson’s earliest and closest collaborators. Nicola was the former artistic director of New York Theater Workshop – the East Village theater where Rent was first workshopped and produced – and experienced firsthand how Larson was at the forefront of progress and change to the musical theater landscape. 

The cast includes talent from Rent’s 12-year Broadway run – featured performers are Adam Kantor, L Morgan Lee, DeMone Seraphin, Rotana Tarazbouni and Keaton Whittaker. Each of the three performances also includes special guests whose work reflects Larson’s influence: Jonathan Larson Grant recipients Michael R. Jackson (A Strange Loop), Anna K. Jacobs (Teeth) and Grace McLean (Suffs) on March 1; Zoe Sarnak (The Lonely Few), and Julian Hornik (The Painter and The Thief) on March 2; Shaina Taub (Suffs) and Daniel and Patrick Lazour (We Live in Cairo) on March 3. Tickets are available here.

We spoke with James C. Nicola about Larson’s impact as a lyricist, his influence on the next generation of musical theater composers and lyricists, and more. (This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.)

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How did the idea come about to honor Jonathan Larson at Lyrics and Lyricists?

They reached out to me saying they wanted to do something about Jonathan, and how could I say anything but “Yes, yes, yes”? I think [it’s] overdue to consider [his lyrics]. It’s tricky with someone who writes music, lyrics and book to have one element of that looked at and considered on its own, so I was very intrigued by the notion of taking just one part of his talent, his lyric writing, and really focusing in on that. I thought that was a really interesting, unique opportunity.

You said that you think Jonathan Larson has been kind of overlooked as a lyricist or hasn't normally gotten this type of attention to his lyrics.

Yes.

Why do you think that is?

It's a couple things. I think partly because he wrote it all. He wrote music, lyrics and book. Like, you could point to West Side Story and say, there's Leonard Bernstein's score and there's Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics. It was all Jonathan's imagination and creativity that made the impact of RENT: its story, its narrative, and particularly the people that appeared on the stage telling their own stories.

So, I think to separate all of that out, which is still, 20-some-odd years later, [very] emotional for a lot of people... I think a dispassionate look at one element of his gift is going to be really interesting and surprising.

Do you have any personal insight into his lyric writing process, having worked with him?

I think that the challenge of being a lyricist in [musical] theater as it's currently defined and practiced is the number of esthetic forms or formats [you have to hit] in order to be a really successful lyricist. You have to be able to make a pop song, and there has been an evolution in American pop music from the 1920s, let's say, which we’re sort of considering as the root of the currently understood American musical theater. That pop form of music is long gone, and there's been a steady evolution along the way to where we are now and a different place we were in in 1996 or ’95, ’94, when he was writing. So, the lyricist has to be responsive to that form of non-theatrical popular appeal kind of lyric writing. It also has to be in the voice of a character. It also has to be a narrative, forward-moving thing. There has to be a sense of dramaturgy in the lyric. So, I think it's not easy, because you have to master a number of beautiful craft forms.

And I think what I observed in that process of working with him from ‘92 to ‘96 is how more and more and more refined he became, how much more masterful he became as he continued to work, as he continued to delve into the story and the characters and the world and how that became more and more specific about who he was talking about, who was talking, where they were, when they were alive. His writing got better.

Is there anything that you're particularly excited about in doing this string of shows?

I think it's, like I said, the focus on the evolution of the lyrics. The other thing that we were contending with right from the start was that... This past fall, I went to see the Lyrics and Lyricists event that was focusing on the lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein, and what overcame me there was, this was a lifetime. He started writing in the ‘20s and he died in 1960, so he had hundreds of songs. He'd been a major practitioner of this craft.

And when we were trying to put together an evening with Jonathan, it was really two, maybe three, works, and then he died at age 35. So, there wasn't a huge body of work to really fill out the evening.

And it occurred to me that, in some ways, his work is as important in terms of what it instigated and what it provoked from other artists of [the] next generations. So we took a look at the list of the Jonathan Larson Grant winners, 27 or 28 of them now, and we were really struck by what powerful connection there was between what Jonathan provoked and who these people were and how amazing they were.

So, each of the three different performances of this event, Louder Than Words, we're going to have two “legacy” lyricists appear and perform a song or two of theirs. So, there'll be a total of six of them, two at each of the three performances. But it was really hard to figure out who of that incredible list to invite.

But that's a particularly strong thing for me, that his family set up a mechanism to be sure to concretize his impact after his death and after he completed his artistic work.

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Tickets to Louder Than Words: The Songs and Legacy of Jonathan Larson on March 1 to 3, 2025 at 92NY are available here.

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