Tick, Tick... Boom!

Tick, Tick... Boom!
2016 Off-Broadway revival poster
Music	Jonathan Larson
Lyrics	Jonathan Larson
Book	Jonathan Larson David Auburn (script consultant)
Premiere	May 23, 2001: Jane Street Theater, New York City
Productions	2001 Off-Broadway 2003 US Tour 2005 Off-West End 2005 Toronto 2005 Ventura 2006 West Hollywood 2009 West End 2014 Encores! 2016 Off-Broadway revival
Awards	Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical

Tick, Tick... Boom! (styled as tick, tick... BOOM!) is a musical written by American composer Jonathan Larson, who won a Pulitzer and three Tony Awards for his musical Rent. Tick, Tick... Boom! tells the story of an aspiring composer named Jon, who lives in New York City in 1990. Jon is worried he has made the wrong career choice to be part of the performing arts. The story is autobiographical, as stated by Larson's father in the liner notes of the cast recording – Larson had been trying to establish himself in theater since the early 1980s.

Larson began to perform the piece as a solo work in 1990. After his death in 1996, it was revised and revamped by playwright David Auburn as a three-actor piece and was premiered Off-Broadway in 2001. Since then, the show has had a Off-West End production, a West End production, an American national tour, two Off-Broadway revivals in 2014 and 2016, and numerous local and international productions.

The show was first performed Off-Off-Broadway in September 1990 by Jonathan Larson in a workshop at the Second Stage Theatre under the title Boho Days. Larson revised the developing piece following Second Stage, changing the title to Tick, Tick... Boom!, and presented with him as performer in November 1991 at the Village Gate (with college pal Victoria Leacock producing), and then later in 1992 and 1993 in the "O Solo Mio" fests at New York Theatre Workshop. Larson performed the show as a "rock monologue," a new form of theatre for the time. The performance attracted the attention of a young producer named Jeffrey Seller, who became a fan of Larson's work. In 1995, he saw the New York Theatre Workshop production of Larson's musical Rent and convinced his fellow producers to bring it to Broadway.