Tim Weil reflects on Jonathan Larson's passion, empathy and dedication to storytelling through his work on Rent
NEED TO KNOW
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Larson's untimely death highlighted the dangers of undiagnosed Marfan syndrome and raised awareness of the condition globally
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Rent's themes were inspired by Larson's close-knit community of friends and their experiences in Lower Manhattan during the HIV/AIDS crisis
Tim Weil, the original music director ofRent,believes Jonathan Larson "certainly" wouldhave made a few changesto the acclaimed rock musical had he seen it in previews.
Weil, 67, worked closely with Larson, who wrote the book, script and lyrics for the 1996 Broadway show. However, Larson died on Jan. 25, 1996, at the age of 35, the night of the final rehearsal and just one day beforeRent'sfirst Off-Broadway preview performance.
"I don't think there's any question about it," Weil tells PEOPLE. "Certainly, during previews, he would've tried and fixed and done things, but, looking back, I believe he left us with the entire treasure map."
"We just had to figure out, from the 'you are here' red dot to the buried treasure, how we would get there, and that would determine what this show was," he continues. "But I think Jonathan left it all there for us. Other people have said to me over the years, 'Oh, wouldn't you like it if this song were better, that song were better?' I'm like, 'No. This is the show.' "
Weil shares that "storytelling through art at this levelis the ultimate giftJonathan could have left for this earth."
On his legacy, Weil says that Larson was a "great" and "dedicated" artist, who was "fiercely aggressive."
"And I don't mean aggressive in the bad way, just in terms of the way he approached his work. It wasn't with passivity, it was with passion," Weil shares. "He had a lot of class, he was a really, really good guy."
Weil still vividly remembers the week leading up to Larson's death, noting that just days before the composer died, he passed out in the back of the theater.
"We had all gone to a diner, and the paramedics went, 'Okay, he's good.' He got up, and he made it through the rest of the night," Weil shares. "He went to the ER the next day, and he was still feeling terrible."
Despite feeling sick, Weil recalls a moment that he felt encapsulates Larson's character.
"He had the presence of mind with his big show about to go into previews and all the excitement and stress around that, he still had the presence of mind to call our associate director, Martha Banta, and ask her how she was feeling because the initial feeling was, 'Jonathan must have gotten food poisoning.' Jonathan had the turkey burger. He knew that Martha had the same. So he called her on Tuesday to see how she was doing," Weil says.
The story, Weil shares, "says everything about Jonathan."
"Just in terms of his generosity, his spirit, and all the talk about being a part of the community and family, and it's true when you do shows, there is a bond that happens, but this was the ultimate embodiment of the community and the family that Jonathan felt that we all were," Weil says. "He was such an empath. But even through the work and through all, through all the very busy time we had, he was a real empath, and I really admired him professionally, and I really admired him personally and respected him."
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The musicalRent,which originally starred Idina Menzel, Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Jesse L. Martin, and Taye Diggs, among others, centered on young creatives in Lower Manhattan amid the HIV/AIDS crisis.
"They always say, write what you know. He was writing about his friends and people that he was coming into contact with, and the friend community," Weil shares. "We are born into a family, and then we go out into the world, and we make our family, and this was Jonathan's family and his friends and his friends' friends, and he told all of their stories and then some."
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While doctors originally told Larson he likely had the flu or food poisoning, he later died from an aortic dissection, believed to have been caused by undiagnosed Marfan syndrome. According to theMarfan Foundation, the genetic aortic and vascular condition can cause aortic enlargement, which can be life-threatening.
Weil emphasizes that Larson's tragic death helped others who were also unknowingly living with Marfan syndrome.
"Amazingly, he wasn't done saving lives or changing lives while he was alive, as a result of his Marfan diagnosis. I can't imagine the number of lives that were saved around the world when people saw Jonathan and saw themselves, by just seeing his appearance, that they had similar physical traits, and between the work the Marfan Foundation did with the Larsons and the work that's gone on and over the years, over the many decades," Weil shares.
"In some ironic, tragic, beautiful way, the gift he left us all with, not onlyRentbut people's ability to see themselves in Jonathan, and change their outcome," Weil adds.
April Dawn Shinske, the chief communications and marketing officer for theMarfan Foundation, says that once people get diagnosed with Marfan syndrome, "they're in a decent position to get expert care, connect with the community, and really thrive at a normal lifespan similar to the average person."
"When they don't know, which is the situation Jonathan was in, they have a 250 times greater risk of aortic dissection," Shinske says. "If that's not medically monitored, if they're not on medications, if they're not getting CAT scans, once a year, and preventative surgery, what can oftentimes happen is exactly what happened to Jonathan, which is you have an aortic dissection that can be fatal within minutes or hours or days. Many medical providers only see a case of Marfan once or twice in their entire careers."
"His reach and his enduring legacy are immense because people in our community see themselves in him, both in beautiful ways in terms of the talent that he had and the fact that you can thrive beyond your condition, and in terrifying ways, in the fact that he lost his life," Shinske adds.
For those with Marfan, Shinske says, "Jonathan represents the awareness that is needed."
"If the world knows, if first responders know about Marfan, ER nurses know about Marfan, school nurses, then more people will live to their elder years. When they see Jonathan 30 years later, they still respond in numbers that are astronomically higher than anything else we touch or do all year long. His legacy is just amazing for our community," Shinske says.
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Tim Weil reflects on Jonathan Larson's passion, empathy and dedication to storytelling through his work on Rent NEED TO KNOW ...
