Did you know Scott Schwartz was the first theater director to work with the 3-person version of Tick, Tick….BOOM!? Here’s the story.
Musical writer Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton, In the Heights) made his movie directing debut with an adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s musical Tick, Tick… Boom! Ahead of the movie’s release in theaters and on Netflix, Miranda pointed to Scott Schwartz (Stephen’s son) as a major influence. Scott directed the 2001 off-Broadway production of the musical Tick, Tick… Boom!, which Miranda described as having knocked him flat. “I’m forever in Scott’s debt for his work,” Miranda tweeted. “You’ll find him in Jon’s audience in the movie.”
Producers Robyn Goodman and Victoria Leacock had invited Scott to develop the musical based on Larson’s then one-man musical that he had performed himself in various venues.
Scott Schwartz explained to Ken Davenport in a podcast interview: “They literally gave me five different scripts and a bunch of demo recordings of Jonathan… and it was all very different. They were all one-man shows, but the story was different, the structure was different, and I looked at it and said, ‘Wow, I love this idea. I love this material, but we need to create a definitive version. I think we need to get a writer and a musical arranger in to sort of shape the material.’ Eventually it became the three-person musical with David Auburn as script consultant and was staged in 2001.”
Auburn was asked in a 2016 TheatreMania.com interview (https://tinyurl.com/ykvp878u) what he was most proud of in for his work on the musicals. He answered, “We excavated it…If Victoria and Robyn and everybody hadn’t gotten together to say let’s do something with this, we wouldn’t have it. It would just be sitting in a drawer somewhere and that would be a loss…I’m really glad that it’s out there in the world”
Back in 2001 and again in 2005 Composer Stephen Schwartz commented on his son Scott’s work on the show in some early editions of The Schwartz Scene fan newsletter.
Stephen Schwartz’s Update, Summer 2001: “A lot of this past quarter has also included enjoying my son Scott’s success with his two current off-Broadway hit musicals: BAT BOY and TICK, TICK…. BOOM. It’s been particularly gratifying to watch him handle both the pressures and the pleasures with far more grace than his dad did when he first started out.”
Stephen Schwartz’s Update, Summer, 2005: “On my way to Copenhagen, I stopped off in London to see Scott’s British production of TICK, TICK … BOOM!, with Neil Patrick Harris terrific as Jonathan Larson (most of you probably know that Larson also wrote RENT and died suddenly shortly before it opened). For some reason, this production, which has been extraordinarily well-reviewed, seemed especially touching to me, perhaps partly because I sat with Al Larson, Jonathan’s dad, at the performance I attended, so naturally I cried through the entire show.”
Cameos
When Miranda created the 2021 movie Tick, Tick…Boom!, he included various cameos and star appearances. (For a list of various cameos, see https://www.bustle.com/entertainment/celebrity-cameos-tick-tick-boom-movie) Stephen Schwartz has a cameo in the movie along with other famed musical writers. As previously mentioned, Scott Schwartz is seen in an audience shot toward the end of the film.
