Jonathan Larson

Jonathan Larson was a Tony Award-winning composer and playwright who lived in NYC and authored musicals, including Rent and Tick, Tick... BOOM!. These musicals tackle serious issues such as multiculturalism, addiction, homophobia, and the AIDS epidemic. After his death, Larson's family and friends started the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation.

Jonathan Larson was born in Westchester County to a Jewish family. He was exposed to the performing arts, especially music and theatre from an early age. He attended Adelphi University with a four-year scholarship as an acting Academic major, in addition to performing in numerous plays and musical theatre. During his college years, he began composing music, first for small student productions called cabarets, and later the score to a musical.

Larson moved to a loft with no heat on the fifth floor of a building at the corner of Greenwich Street and Spring Street in Lower Manhattan where he lived with various roommates.Larson and his roommates lived in harsh conditions with little money or property. Rent started as a staged reading in 1993, followed by a studio production that played a three-week run a year later. However, the version that is now known worldwide was not publicly performed before Larson's death.