When the clock strikes 7:30 p.m. next Thursday, there will be one chaotic birthday party at the Cat in the Cream. The Music Theater department’s production of Tick, Tick… BOOM! will run March 12 and 13, offering an intimate take on Jonathan Larson’s semi-autobiographical musical. Directed and choreographed by Assistant Professor of Music Theater Lauren Marousek, the raucous, immersive, and inspiring production sports a run time of 90 minutes and a three-person cast. 

Tick, Tick… BOOM! is centered around a talented composer and playwright named Jon, played by Conservatory fourth-year Ryan James Sweeney, who questions his career path in the time leading up to his 30th birthday. From creator Jonathan Larson, who tragically passed the day before the off-Broadway opening of his beloved show Rent in 1996, the musical explores the difficult balance between passion and practicality that many of us face.

“I think everyone can relate to the idea of, ‘I’m not where I thought I’d be,’” Marousek said. “And it doesn’t matter if it’s 30 or 40 or even 20, 21. … That idea of, ‘Am I enough? Am I doing enough?’”

These difficult questions and the passage of time are examined through Jon’s relationships, mainly with his girlfriend Susan and best friend Michael, portrayed by Conservatory fourth-year Izzy Baker and Conservatory third-year Logan Lee Edwards respectively. At a college where the typical student juggles multiple extracurriculars, majors, or even degrees, the emphasis this production gives to the importance of art and passion is particularly relevant.

“We all have deadlines that we set for ourselves, and we all want to see results by then,” Sweeney said. “And the unfortunate truth of the world, especially the artistic world, is that it just doesn’t work on those metrics. What’s going to happen is going to happen when it happens. But most times, you can’t force it.”

Sweeney and Baker are preparing for their senior showcase in New York and graduation, both coming up in a few months. This production is especially meaningful as they near these milestones and embark on their own theatrical careers, paralleling Jon.

“It’s a show that I think is really, really poignant to me for more reasons than I can possibly say,” Sweeney said. “I find a lot of myself as I am right now in this character and the things that he is going through and overcoming and thinking and celebrating.”

Sweeney is a composer himself as well as an actor. He even self-accompanies and writes like Jon does in the show. He describes Jon’s character as “close to home” and his favorite theatrical role he’s taken on thus far in his career. 

Similarly, Edwards resonates with his role in the production. Michael, a queer man, reveals to Jon in the show that he has tested positive for HIV. Edwards emphasized how the stage is a necessary place for this story to be told.

“To be able to play a Black queer man onstage is simply one of the greatest artistic endeavors I have ever had the opportunity to do,” Edwards wrote in an email to the Review. “Stories like these are so important, and to be able to play someone who relates so closely to my identity allows someone else like me to see themselves onstage. Stories about gay men in the ’80s and ’90s receiving positive HIV results and/or waiting till the last possible second to get tested are true and very real. It’s a part of history — America’s history — and can be often overlooked or ignored. Art is there to tell those stories that everyone else is [too] uncomfortable to share.”

The show combines these moments of intense reflection and devastating emotion with joyous art and community, all through a rock musical style. The cast will be accompanied by a bassist, guitarist, and percussionist, as well as Music Director Matthew Dolan on the keyboard.

The production was born out of Larson’s one-man act “Boho Days,” which he first performed in nightclubs in New York around 1990. Marousek is excited to stage the production at the Cat in the Cream, a venue faithful to Larson’s “Boho Days.”

“You pack people in, and the energy exchange feels really intimate and close in the same way it does in a rehearsal room,” Marousek said. “I’m thrilled to hopefully get tons of people in the space to share the energy.”

Baker also looks forward to performing at the venue and reflected on what it means to do the show for fellow Oberlin students.

“I think it’s kind of poetic in the way that …. these people were starving artists at one point, but now they’re going to go on to do great things and be great people,” Baker said. “Just like I’m sure everyone here is.”

With all of the art, tension, queerness, and discovery packed into this show, it is a piece meant to inspire young adults and anyone feeling like they have something to prove, say, or create. It is a message every student should hear and take with them in their pursuits at Oberlin and beyond. 

“I want them to leave the theater remembering why they’re doing what they do, remembering the love that they lead their craft with, instead of the fear,” Sweeney said.