Tick, Tick...Boom! Opens Tomorrow

I’m not a huge fan of the musical Rent . . . but when you’ve seen like . . . four or five different productions of a musical, you end up getting opinions about it. A little while back, I had the opportunity to do a phone interview with Anthony Rappthe man who originated the role of Mark Cohen in that musical. Nice guy. He was in my hometown of Appleton at the time. (The touring production of RENT he was in at the time was there a couple of days before it opened here.) Not being a huge fan of the musical, I was kind of surprised to hear that the story of RENT had been the subject of a completely different stage piece by writer/composer Jonathan Larson. It’s an autobiographical work by Larson called Tick, Tick…Boom ! A version of that musical makes its way to Milwaukee for the first time in a Soulstice Theatre production that opens this week.

The production looks really, really good. There’s some real talent in the cast including Jordan Gwiazdowski as Larson with an ensemble including talents like Josh Perkins, Ambers Smith and a few others I’m not as familiar with yet. I’ve seen RENT four or five times live . . . now I guess it’s time to see some of the story behind it. Nice to know there are a few familiar faces in there . . . this looks fun.

Soulstice Theatre’s production of Tick, Tick…Boom ! runs January 27^th through February 11^th at Soulstice’s new space on 3770 S. Pennsylvania Avenue in Saint Francis.