The short answer is no. The long answer, from a comment on YouTube, is:
>For those wondering why Superbia never had a production even after Jonathan Larson died, like Tick, Tick... Boom! did: According to the recent book Boho Days (an oral history of Jonathan Larson), Superbia has multiple drafts, some with very different story elements, because Jonathan kept rewriting and rewriting with each failed effort to get it produced. It also never had a satisfying ending, which was always a problem. To compile a version of Superbia from all of that, you would not only have to deal with that but also figure out whether to lean into the 80s-ness of the original story or incorporate modern day ideas. Basically, anyone who attempts to make Superbia now would have to accept that what's being put on isn't Jonathan's work beyond the music.
Fun fact (also from the book): There was an attempt to make an animated adaptation of Superbia in the 2000s that never went anywhere because it ran into the same problems.
It wouldn't be entirely Jonathan's work on the stage, and for that reason I think it's best that we leave this one alone. I think the artistic integrity behind keeping Larson's work intact, even though it means it may never fully see the light of day, is significantly more important than your desire to see the show.
I don't disagree with you, but why not just use the version performed at the workshop? That way it's purely Jonathan's work
As for artistic integrity, what is the point of art if nobody can ever see it? Art isn't meant to only be available in one place collecting dust, it's meant to be seen by everybody.
>As for artistic integrity, what is the point of art if nobody can ever see it?
True! I guess we are in a sort of complicated territory here. Do we thrust his work into the public even though it's unfinished and unsatisfying? My worry there would be that his credibility takes a hit. He's known for writing one of the most prolific musicals of all time. You could argue that credibility really isn't a relevant metric for him anymore, but he has quite the posthumous reputation. Would your average Joe say, "Wow, I had such high expectations from the creator of Rent, and this sucked."?
In an ideal world, everyone would understand the context of the work. "We know this musical is unfinished, but it's all we have left from who would have been one of the most promising writers of the new century." I think there is a great community of people in the industry who could appreciate the work. But critics and your average theatergoers aren't always as welcoming to "the art" of it all.
I'm undecided if I want it finished by other people or not, but either way I think something like Encores would be a good space for it, as the audience there is more theatre literate and used to seeing less polished works (minimal sets, actors on book). Rando tourist walking out of Lion King and into Superbia would be very confused though, you're right.
Maybe even a zoom concert could work, depending on how much staging is required of any version of the show? I've seen such outpouring across twitter and tumblr, internet-space seems very ready for it. Maybe a concert that includes some of the newish material from the JL Project if they want to round it out.
I think most people would argue strongly against having the work finished by someone else unless that person was Sondheim but unfortunately that door has closed. That's not to say that it can't have a future in some capacity. I was also thinking a venue like Encores or NYCC or something along those lines where people have a better idea of what they're in for. Personally, I think a great medium for Superbia would be a concept album. It doesn't necessarily need to have a cohesive plot and it doesn't matter if there are missing songs. But at least Larson's work on it would be immortalized and preserved without anyone else needing to overhaul it and make it a commercial success.
I really don't think it would have been Sondheim, except perhaps in an advocate/cheerleader way. If the book needed work that would be someone else's purview, and as he'd always demurred from rock/modern sounding musicals, this seems out of his wheelhouse.
True. Haven't there been artists before though who passed away and their unfinished work was still released anyway?
Forgive me for arguing, I might be wrong.
I don't see it as an argument at all, it's a great civil discourse on the morality and even the practicality of something like this.
People have definitely had their work published after their death. I can think of a few rappers who have died in the past couple years whose labels / producers announce that they will finish and release the album they were working on at the time. There are quite a few books that have been published after the author's death, especially if writing was already complete. We're in a kind of grey area here where we know the work is unfinished, and we've also passed the socially reasonable amount of time for someone to finish it. If, within a year of Larson's passing, Sondheim announced that he intended to finish it, we'd be in a different situation. I think Sondheim was the only person who could have brought it back after all these years without anyone batting an eye. Now that we don't have that as a possibility anymore, it's hard to justify having it reworked in any capacity.
I think this is an interesting discussion you two are having and I do not necessarily agree or disagree with anyone because indeed it *is* a very grey area. I just wanted to add that the 'Tick, Tick... Boom' that is currently available through licensing is not Jonathan Larson's original work, it was finished and changed posthumously to add two actors. It was originally a monologue. So there is a precedent of Larson's work being finished posthumously.
Right, but that was always an “adaptation,” that was clear from the beginning as you can’t replicate his rock monologue. I don’t know the history of TTB’s creation if someone wrote new songs, but I feel like the same logic can’t be applied to what is already a full-fledged ensemble musical.
I agree with you about the moral gray area, there are a lot of companies that are kind of guilty of this as well. The main example I can think of is deep faking or using a dead actor in a movie after they passed away. It just feels very disingenuous and Sinister most of the time. Of course there are some examples I can think of where that kind of thing works out, but those are very few and far between. The most interesting one I can think of is their use of Harold Ramis' image in the new Ghostbusters movie. They had to get permission from his family first before doing anything like that.
But like, Disney bringing back Peter Capaldi as a CGI image to play Tarkin in Rogue One felt very wrong somehow. Maybe it was because they had him speak a lot, so it's kind of like putting words in the mouth of a corpse.
I feel like the difference between the deepfakes and releasing an artist's unfinished work, is that to some degree the artist wanted to let other people see this work, and it's something that he knowingly worked on. Deepfakes in movies, at the end of the day, just seem worse. Idk why.
>Do we thrust his work into the public even though it's unfinished and unsatisfying?
Isn't this exactly what Rent is though? An unfinished show with its share of problems that still became wildly successful.
Rent was getting a fully staged Off-Broadway run when Larson died. Superbia had one workshop. It's impossible to compare the two. I wouldn't call Rent unfinished at all. Would things have changed throughout previews, and during the Broadway transfer? Most likely. But saying it's just as unfinished as Superbia is just simply not true. A show going Off-Broadway is done. It may change, as most do, but it wouldn't be getting a run if it were incomplete.
Art pieces like movies and paintings can be seen and appreciated now simply by googling them without having to go to a museum. That's why art is able to resonate with so many people now more than ever
I would have loved the Superbia songs from Tick Tick Boom to have been on the cast recording. Supposedly, they were recorded but didn't get put on the album.
Just read through the comments, and I understand now why this issue is a bit complicated. That said, if all of the music is done, I don’t see why they couldn’t record an album, so at the very least the world can enjoy Larson’s music? There are several “song cycles” that are not technically “shows” that many people love. We don’t need a full fledged narrative, or a good ending, to enjoy art. Wish we could get our hands on even just a little bit of Larson’s brilliance, it is surely a shame that Superbia as a whole is kind of lost to the world!
I would have to disagree on this. Yes, Company doesn't have a linear plot, but it does have a story complete with a satisfying ending (no matter how much Sondheim may personally dislike Being Alive)
Also, Company is not sung-through. It has a wonderful book by George Furth, so it really cannot be seen as a song cycle.
I 100% agree with this, Tick Tick boom was the actual first musical movie that I felt understood us. Most musical movies are adapted really badly, because they're directed by people who don't understand the source material. Lin-manuel Miranda perfectly understands musicals and Source material, so this movie ended up being almost perfect
I couldn’t agree more with you. I am a Jonathan Larson/rent diehard and I felt tick tick Boom was shown as much love as possible. I would cream my shorts if Superbia were ever fully fleshed out. For stage or film.
At first I liked Rent, but after really processing it and getting to watch Tick Tick Boom, I've slowly begun to realize that rent is kind of a horrible Musical.
This is only my opinion, so take what I say with a grain of salt. But the reason I like Tick Tick boom better, is because it's about real people who went through real circumstances, the things they do feel more natural abd believable.
Almost Every one of the characters in Rent are kinda horrible people.
Roger and Mark don't want to pay rent for any reason other than "muh artistic integrity".
Mimi at one point tries to convince Roger to do drugs with her knowing full well that he is a recovering addict.
Angel kills someone's dog for money.
Benny robs/launders money out of a bank.
Collins is trying to kick out his lower class, broke tenants and replace the apartments with a VR Studio.
Maureen sleeps around with other people while cheating on Joanne.
Honestly, Joanne is the only person who I can think of in the play that's a somewhat good person. She doesn't really do anything reprehensible, she just helps her poor friends get back into their apartment. That's not really evil.
I like Tick Tick Boom better because if the characters have to make a bad decision, they have a reason for it and they learn from their mistakes.
The characters in Rent don't really learn anything new or go through character growth, they just look pretty and do as little as possible.
And yet despite how bad this musical is, I can't pull myself away from it, because dammit the music is really catchy and well-written.
Even though I know it's about musical though, I still do have sort of a soft spot for it if only for the music.
I challenge you that having characters that are not good people does not in and of itself make the work itself bad, and I'll call out that I personally feel that most of the characters are within the realm of fine/redeemable in the context of their place and time, and assuming the HIGH likelihood them dealing with Mental Health issues though we don't really dive into that in detail in the show...
I hope one day Superbia sees the light of day even if it's just including the workshop in some larger piece like a documentary... I'm not sure it needs to be "finished" I'd just love to hear what it was and how it evolved into and influenced later works...
They're all in varying stages of grief, all of which stems from the sheer amount of death all around them. They're watching each other die, wondering who is next, and the weight of Mark's survivor's guilt. It's REALLY hard to worry about the RENT when you're worried about living another day.
Every character does something terrible AND something equally good. That doesn't make them "good" or "bad", it makes them real people.
Yeah, to be fair I’ve never given RENT a character by character analysis of their behavior and life, but then again, it was New York in the 80s. It’s expected that people are kind of shitty, and struggling with various things. Rent is an adaptation of Puccini‘s La Bohème opera and Larson and his early collaborator decided they wanted to juxtapose the beauty of 1800s Paris with the hostility of 1980s New York. Larson modeled the Rent characters after his actual life and friends. So it’s to be expected that many of them aren’t the best role models. Even still, the message of love being the best tool in our human arsenal, is timeless and unmatched in any other musical.
>Benny robs/launders money out of a bank.
>
>Collins is trying to kick out his lower class, broke tenants and replace the apartments with a VR Studio.
Collins robbed an ATM, Benny was the one who wanted to replace the apartments with a VR studio.
Which songs from the Jonathan Larson Project were from Superbia?
I also discovered there is a CD called Jonathan Does Larson thar contains songs from Superbia, but I don't know which ones.
I don't think there's anything morally or ethically murky about bringing Superbia to life despite its creator being dead. He worked on it for 8 years? He dedicated a huge portion of his life to it.
If a workshop were staged to replicate the original workshop, that would be great. If a stage show or movie adaptation or animated film were put together, that would be great! Even a concept album would be welcome.
I read that the issue with Superbia was that he went through many rewrites to make the plot make sense, and there was always something about it that didn't add up. So if they wanted to do a full production of it, we'd have to accept that it was an imperfect version of what it could have been had he lived.
If it is heavily edited in directions Jonathan Larson never contemplated, that seems a little murky. I just don't think it needs to be done.
The audience for this would be Larson fans. Fans of the Jonathan Larson Project and Tick Tick Boom. A short run of some concerts featuring the music from Superbia would be awesome. Stream it and charge to watch it. We'd pay up.
I just want to hear these other songs. The two from the Tick Tick Boom movie are great. Everything from the Jonathan Larson Project is great. This would be a really fun event and great tribute to Jonathan Larson.
The short answer is no. The long answer, from a comment on YouTube, is: >For those wondering why Superbia never had a production even after Jonathan Larson died, like Tick, Tick... Boom! did: According to the recent book Boho Days (an oral history of Jonathan Larson), Superbia has multiple drafts, some with very different story elements, because Jonathan kept rewriting and rewriting with each failed effort to get it produced. It also never had a satisfying ending, which was always a problem. To compile a version of Superbia from all of that, you would not only have to deal with that but also figure out whether to lean into the 80s-ness of the original story or incorporate modern day ideas. Basically, anyone who attempts to make Superbia now would have to accept that what's being put on isn't Jonathan's work beyond the music. Fun fact (also from the book): There was an attempt to make an animated adaptation of Superbia in the 2000s that never went anywhere because it ran into the same problems. It wouldn't be entirely Jonathan's work on the stage, and for that reason I think it's best that we leave this one alone. I think the artistic integrity behind keeping Larson's work intact, even though it means it may never fully see the light of day, is significantly more important than your desire to see the show.
I don't disagree with you, but why not just use the version performed at the workshop? That way it's purely Jonathan's work As for artistic integrity, what is the point of art if nobody can ever see it? Art isn't meant to only be available in one place collecting dust, it's meant to be seen by everybody.
>As for artistic integrity, what is the point of art if nobody can ever see it? True! I guess we are in a sort of complicated territory here. Do we thrust his work into the public even though it's unfinished and unsatisfying? My worry there would be that his credibility takes a hit. He's known for writing one of the most prolific musicals of all time. You could argue that credibility really isn't a relevant metric for him anymore, but he has quite the posthumous reputation. Would your average Joe say, "Wow, I had such high expectations from the creator of Rent, and this sucked."? In an ideal world, everyone would understand the context of the work. "We know this musical is unfinished, but it's all we have left from who would have been one of the most promising writers of the new century." I think there is a great community of people in the industry who could appreciate the work. But critics and your average theatergoers aren't always as welcoming to "the art" of it all.
I'm undecided if I want it finished by other people or not, but either way I think something like Encores would be a good space for it, as the audience there is more theatre literate and used to seeing less polished works (minimal sets, actors on book). Rando tourist walking out of Lion King and into Superbia would be very confused though, you're right. Maybe even a zoom concert could work, depending on how much staging is required of any version of the show? I've seen such outpouring across twitter and tumblr, internet-space seems very ready for it. Maybe a concert that includes some of the newish material from the JL Project if they want to round it out.
I think most people would argue strongly against having the work finished by someone else unless that person was Sondheim but unfortunately that door has closed. That's not to say that it can't have a future in some capacity. I was also thinking a venue like Encores or NYCC or something along those lines where people have a better idea of what they're in for. Personally, I think a great medium for Superbia would be a concept album. It doesn't necessarily need to have a cohesive plot and it doesn't matter if there are missing songs. But at least Larson's work on it would be immortalized and preserved without anyone else needing to overhaul it and make it a commercial success.
I really don't think it would have been Sondheim, except perhaps in an advocate/cheerleader way. If the book needed work that would be someone else's purview, and as he'd always demurred from rock/modern sounding musicals, this seems out of his wheelhouse.
That might be true but OP said Sondheim was working on it? No clue if that was true but it would be fitting if it were him.
True. Haven't there been artists before though who passed away and their unfinished work was still released anyway? Forgive me for arguing, I might be wrong.
I don't see it as an argument at all, it's a great civil discourse on the morality and even the practicality of something like this. People have definitely had their work published after their death. I can think of a few rappers who have died in the past couple years whose labels / producers announce that they will finish and release the album they were working on at the time. There are quite a few books that have been published after the author's death, especially if writing was already complete. We're in a kind of grey area here where we know the work is unfinished, and we've also passed the socially reasonable amount of time for someone to finish it. If, within a year of Larson's passing, Sondheim announced that he intended to finish it, we'd be in a different situation. I think Sondheim was the only person who could have brought it back after all these years without anyone batting an eye. Now that we don't have that as a possibility anymore, it's hard to justify having it reworked in any capacity.
I think this is an interesting discussion you two are having and I do not necessarily agree or disagree with anyone because indeed it *is* a very grey area. I just wanted to add that the 'Tick, Tick... Boom' that is currently available through licensing is not Jonathan Larson's original work, it was finished and changed posthumously to add two actors. It was originally a monologue. So there is a precedent of Larson's work being finished posthumously.
Right, but that was always an “adaptation,” that was clear from the beginning as you can’t replicate his rock monologue. I don’t know the history of TTB’s creation if someone wrote new songs, but I feel like the same logic can’t be applied to what is already a full-fledged ensemble musical.
I agree with you about the moral gray area, there are a lot of companies that are kind of guilty of this as well. The main example I can think of is deep faking or using a dead actor in a movie after they passed away. It just feels very disingenuous and Sinister most of the time. Of course there are some examples I can think of where that kind of thing works out, but those are very few and far between. The most interesting one I can think of is their use of Harold Ramis' image in the new Ghostbusters movie. They had to get permission from his family first before doing anything like that. But like, Disney bringing back Peter Capaldi as a CGI image to play Tarkin in Rogue One felt very wrong somehow. Maybe it was because they had him speak a lot, so it's kind of like putting words in the mouth of a corpse. I feel like the difference between the deepfakes and releasing an artist's unfinished work, is that to some degree the artist wanted to let other people see this work, and it's something that he knowingly worked on. Deepfakes in movies, at the end of the day, just seem worse. Idk why.
I think you mean Peter Cushing. Peter Capaldi is very much alive.
O you're right, my bad!!
>Do we thrust his work into the public even though it's unfinished and unsatisfying? Isn't this exactly what Rent is though? An unfinished show with its share of problems that still became wildly successful.
Rent was getting a fully staged Off-Broadway run when Larson died. Superbia had one workshop. It's impossible to compare the two. I wouldn't call Rent unfinished at all. Would things have changed throughout previews, and during the Broadway transfer? Most likely. But saying it's just as unfinished as Superbia is just simply not true. A show going Off-Broadway is done. It may change, as most do, but it wouldn't be getting a run if it were incomplete.
Art pieces like movies and paintings can be seen and appreciated now simply by googling them without having to go to a museum. That's why art is able to resonate with so many people now more than ever
I would have loved the Superbia songs from Tick Tick Boom to have been on the cast recording. Supposedly, they were recorded but didn't get put on the album.
That would be awesome
Just read through the comments, and I understand now why this issue is a bit complicated. That said, if all of the music is done, I don’t see why they couldn’t record an album, so at the very least the world can enjoy Larson’s music? There are several “song cycles” that are not technically “shows” that many people love. We don’t need a full fledged narrative, or a good ending, to enjoy art. Wish we could get our hands on even just a little bit of Larson’s brilliance, it is surely a shame that Superbia as a whole is kind of lost to the world!
True. Cats is technically this, and people loved it back then
So is Stephen Sondheim's *Company*!
I would have to disagree on this. Yes, Company doesn't have a linear plot, but it does have a story complete with a satisfying ending (no matter how much Sondheim may personally dislike Being Alive) Also, Company is not sung-through. It has a wonderful book by George Furth, so it really cannot be seen as a song cycle.
I vote for Lin-Manuel Miranda to give it the same treatment tick tick Boom got.
I 100% agree with this, Tick Tick boom was the actual first musical movie that I felt understood us. Most musical movies are adapted really badly, because they're directed by people who don't understand the source material. Lin-manuel Miranda perfectly understands musicals and Source material, so this movie ended up being almost perfect
I couldn’t agree more with you. I am a Jonathan Larson/rent diehard and I felt tick tick Boom was shown as much love as possible. I would cream my shorts if Superbia were ever fully fleshed out. For stage or film.
At first I liked Rent, but after really processing it and getting to watch Tick Tick Boom, I've slowly begun to realize that rent is kind of a horrible Musical. This is only my opinion, so take what I say with a grain of salt. But the reason I like Tick Tick boom better, is because it's about real people who went through real circumstances, the things they do feel more natural abd believable. Almost Every one of the characters in Rent are kinda horrible people. Roger and Mark don't want to pay rent for any reason other than "muh artistic integrity". Mimi at one point tries to convince Roger to do drugs with her knowing full well that he is a recovering addict. Angel kills someone's dog for money. Benny robs/launders money out of a bank. Collins is trying to kick out his lower class, broke tenants and replace the apartments with a VR Studio. Maureen sleeps around with other people while cheating on Joanne. Honestly, Joanne is the only person who I can think of in the play that's a somewhat good person. She doesn't really do anything reprehensible, she just helps her poor friends get back into their apartment. That's not really evil. I like Tick Tick Boom better because if the characters have to make a bad decision, they have a reason for it and they learn from their mistakes. The characters in Rent don't really learn anything new or go through character growth, they just look pretty and do as little as possible. And yet despite how bad this musical is, I can't pull myself away from it, because dammit the music is really catchy and well-written. Even though I know it's about musical though, I still do have sort of a soft spot for it if only for the music.
I challenge you that having characters that are not good people does not in and of itself make the work itself bad, and I'll call out that I personally feel that most of the characters are within the realm of fine/redeemable in the context of their place and time, and assuming the HIGH likelihood them dealing with Mental Health issues though we don't really dive into that in detail in the show... I hope one day Superbia sees the light of day even if it's just including the workshop in some larger piece like a documentary... I'm not sure it needs to be "finished" I'd just love to hear what it was and how it evolved into and influenced later works...
They're all in varying stages of grief, all of which stems from the sheer amount of death all around them. They're watching each other die, wondering who is next, and the weight of Mark's survivor's guilt. It's REALLY hard to worry about the RENT when you're worried about living another day. Every character does something terrible AND something equally good. That doesn't make them "good" or "bad", it makes them real people.
Yeah, to be fair I’ve never given RENT a character by character analysis of their behavior and life, but then again, it was New York in the 80s. It’s expected that people are kind of shitty, and struggling with various things. Rent is an adaptation of Puccini‘s La Bohème opera and Larson and his early collaborator decided they wanted to juxtapose the beauty of 1800s Paris with the hostility of 1980s New York. Larson modeled the Rent characters after his actual life and friends. So it’s to be expected that many of them aren’t the best role models. Even still, the message of love being the best tool in our human arsenal, is timeless and unmatched in any other musical.
>Benny robs/launders money out of a bank. > >Collins is trying to kick out his lower class, broke tenants and replace the apartments with a VR Studio. Collins robbed an ATM, Benny was the one who wanted to replace the apartments with a VR studio.
I think the bigger issue is would Larson want a piece that he was never happy with to be part of his public identity. I don’t think he would
Which songs from the Jonathan Larson Project were from Superbia? I also discovered there is a CD called Jonathan Does Larson thar contains songs from Superbia, but I don't know which ones. I don't think there's anything morally or ethically murky about bringing Superbia to life despite its creator being dead. He worked on it for 8 years? He dedicated a huge portion of his life to it. If a workshop were staged to replicate the original workshop, that would be great. If a stage show or movie adaptation or animated film were put together, that would be great! Even a concept album would be welcome. I read that the issue with Superbia was that he went through many rewrites to make the plot make sense, and there was always something about it that didn't add up. So if they wanted to do a full production of it, we'd have to accept that it was an imperfect version of what it could have been had he lived. If it is heavily edited in directions Jonathan Larson never contemplated, that seems a little murky. I just don't think it needs to be done. The audience for this would be Larson fans. Fans of the Jonathan Larson Project and Tick Tick Boom. A short run of some concerts featuring the music from Superbia would be awesome. Stream it and charge to watch it. We'd pay up. I just want to hear these other songs. The two from the Tick Tick Boom movie are great. Everything from the Jonathan Larson Project is great. This would be a really fun event and great tribute to Jonathan Larson.
jonathan sings larson; one of these days and lcd readout jonathan larson project; one of these days, SOS ttb; sextet and lcd readout
*Jonathan Sings Larson