“TICK, TICK… BOOM” BY EMERALD THEATRE, THROUGH MARCH 30, 2025
The market for small-scale musicals in our city is oft-neglected. But when a good one comes around, like “tick, tick… BOOM!,” running through March 30 at TheatreWorks, it makes such a warm impression you start wondering if there’s a whole untapped genre out there looking for a Memphis stage.
Truth is: few chamber musicals have the reputation of this one. Its popularity, especially among musical theater fans, makes it an apt choice for Emerald Theatre Company to stage, and likely one of those bucket list shows for actor/musician Nathan McHenry, for whom the leading role is a perfect fit.
“tick, tick…BOOM!” started as a one-man show back in 1990. Jonathan Larson’s semi-autobiographical concert monologue about a struggling composer failing to get his debut musical produced helped boost his career– a calling card, of sorts. Larson expresses his desire to sell Broadway on some then-progressive ideas — electric guitars, for example. The Great White Way also needed some real-world cultural diversity.
Larson’s piece ends on an optimistic note, certain that success still lies ahead for him. And that turned out to be the case. A few years later, some of the ideas teased in “tick, tick… BOOM!” (struggling artists, the AIDS crisis, to follow one’s muse in the city or try something new elsewhere) got fleshed out in his magnum opus, “Rent.”
Given “Rent’s” mainstream pop cultural impact and how it began to open doors for other genre-bending work, it makes sense that the 2021 Netflix version of “tick, tick… BOOM!” was directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. The creator of “Hamilton” said seeing “Rent” at 17 convinced him to become a writer of musicals.
Unlike Miranda, Larson didn’t get to enjoy the rewards of his labor. He died suddenly, just weeks before “Rent” opened Off-Broadway. The Pulitzer Prize, the Tony Awards all came with the posthumous label.
That backstory has always imbued “tick, tick… BOOM!” with a bittersweetness probably more heightened among musical theater buffs. For newcomers, director Liz Pegg gives us a show that feels like it’s being performed in a living room among friends. It’s welcoming and earnest.
As Jon, Nathan McHenry portrays an affable artist in a time crunch. He’s counting down the minutes to his 30th birthday. Simultaneously, a musical he’s been working on is approaching its make-or-break workshop. His life is in serious need of validation.
His girlfriend, Susan, played by Eileen Peterson, is gently but firmly planning her egress from New York City and, by extension, Jon’s life. Jarrad Baker is Michael, a former roommate who has given up on a theater career for more lucrative work. Both are entirely sympathetic characters facing their own ticking deadlines.
As a meditation on time and entropy, the show’s message feels timely in one other way: posing the question of how to stay hopeful when things seem to be falling apart.
As to the production’s technical aspects, McHenry plays a bit of keyboard, but most of the music is prerecorded. The cast sings without microphones, and I half-expected to grouse about this fact, as if theater has always used mics. But the sound balance was right, the lyrics were clear, and the realness of the singing made the show more relatable. While Larson may have intended his score to rock out, he also wanted to win hearts. “tick, tick…BOOM!” was, after all, written to get Larson’s foot in Broadway’s door. 35 years later, it reminds us that meaningful musicals can come in small packages. ✒ C.B.