The Jonathan Larson Project Turns Rent’s Leftover Songs Into a Bittersweet Southwark Scrapbook

The Jonathan Larson Project | Southwark Playhouse Borough until 22 August 2026

Rent’s composer left behind a trunk of songs. Here they finally get sung.

Jonathan Larson, the visionary behind Rent, a musical that redefined Broadway, died suddenly at thirty-five from an aortic dissection on the eve of its first off-Broadway preview. He never witnessed its impact, the Pulitzer, the Tony Awards, or the generation of theatre enthusiasts it inspired.

This year marks three decades since his death, and The Jonathan Larson Project, making its UK premiere at Southwark Playhouse, reimagined for London by original off-Broadway director John Simpkins, draws on his extensive archive. This collection includes cassette tapes, journals, cut songs from Rent and Tick, Tick… Boom!, and pieces written for unproduced musicals. Eighteen previously unheard songs are brought together, showcasing the writer Larson was becoming before Rent catapulted him to fame.

On a positive note, these songs are not forced into a story that they were not written for, this is simply a song cycle, a decade-long scrapbook of a creative mind, rather than a story with a traditional beginning, middle, and end. This ramshackle nature, while authentic to the archive, ultimately proves to be its downfall.

We have five performers of undoubted talent and commitment, although some vary in their vocal quality, Max Harwood, Imelda Warren-Green, Michael Mather, Natalie Kassanga, and Marcus Collins, who have to carry the entire 90 minutes, no interval production. They infuse immense emotion and energy into these songs, at times, more than the material strictly warrants. The audience’s connection to the music isn’t always guaranteed simply because a performer is deeply invested.

A screen behind them displays the title and original purpose of each song, but that can be very difficult to see when you’re sitting on the side as I was, and also, it’s projected onto a sheet rather than a flat screen. The show might have benefited from more narration and background to each number, a “and then he wrote” more traditional approach as in Side by Side by Sondheim. It’s a challenging balance to strike between a theatrical experience and a lecture.

The production has also faced controversy regarding its use of AI. During its original off-Broadway run, some video projections reportedly incorporated AI-generated imagery. For an artist like Larson, whose work often critiqued dehumanizing technology, this choice struck many critics and audience members as discordant. My personal view is that if AI is used sensitively, carefully, and without displacing human jobs to enhance a show with a limited budget, it functions as any other tool in a production’s arsenal, akin to Photoshop or filters. When utilized effectively, it makes perfect sense.

For those interested in the history of musical theatre and who appreciate Rent and Tick, Tick… Boom!, this production will undoubtedly resonate.

Go if you already love Rent and want to hear the songs that came before it, and lower your expectations of narrative shape rather than emotional payoff. EyeOnLondon found the archive more moving than the evening it’s built into.

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