in cups of coffee

@RoryOMalley

of course!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBDJGx8ck0c

By Lin-Manuel Miranda

Nov. 11, 2001, Eastern Standard Time.

I am a senior at Wesleyan, and my girlfriend Aileen has surprised me with tickets to see “Tick, Tick … Boom!” by Larson Off Broadway. We drive down from school to the Jane Street Theater, south of West 14th Street. The terrorist attacks of two months earlier are still fresh in everyone’s minds, and it is our first time so far downtown since. The real world is terrifying, and we are theater majors about to graduate: What on earth do we have to offer it? The houselights go down, and Raúl Esparza comes onstage as Jonathan, and nothing is ever the same again.

“Tick, Tick … Boom!” is an autobiographical musical that Jonathan Larson wrote concurrently with “Rent”; the playwright David Auburn later adapted into a three-person show. The story is simple: It is 1990, and Jonathan is grappling with turning 30. He is trying to make a living writing musical theater, but he works at a diner to pay the bills. His best friend has given up acting for a job in market research; his girlfriend, a dancer, wants to leave New York. He hears time ticking away, he sees friends and lovers abandoning their dreams, but he keeps going.

Just as “Rent” grabbed 17-year-old me and announced, “This is what you should be doing,” “Tick, Tick … Boom!” grabbed the 21-year old me and refused to let go. It was more than a portrait of the artist as a young man; it was a sneak preview of what my 20s would be: readings and workshops going nowhere, jobs allowing only flexible hours, relationships ending because the writing comes first and must always come first, watching talented friends adjust their dreams and find happiness in other careers with more stability. Every young artist deals with these realities, and Jonathan gave them specificity and vitality and truth. He kept going, and, in doing so, galvanized a generation of songwriters to follow his lead, myself included.

Off in the night, while you live it up, I’m off to sleep Waging wars to shape the poet and the beat I hope it’s gonna make you notice Someone like me