AJ Rafael as Jon in "tick, tick ... BOOM!"                                                                   Karli Cadel Photography

            If you want to know what “tick, tick … BOOM!” meant to Jonathan Larson, Google the YouTube video of his performing pieces of his solo show of the same name in November 1991 at the Village Gate in Greenwich Village. The sound’s a little muddy, the vocals are sincere but nothing special, the keyboarding does its job. But what’s there over the course of 18 minutes or so is the passion the young Larson had for musical theater and the drive inside him to make a name for himself. Maybe even on Broadway.
            Larson would do so, of course -- after his untimely death in 1996. His revolutionary rock musical “Rent” opened on Broadway three months after he passed. The rest is bittersweet history.
            The tragedy of the dream that would go unrealized while he was alive makes “tick, tick …. BOOM!” even more emotional in retrospect. Playwright David Auburn transformed the musical monologue into a three-actor piece not long after Larson’s death. It’s best known to most audiences from the 2021 film adaptation for Netflix directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda and starring Andrew Garfield.
              If something was lost in the transformation it was the intensely personal nature of “tick, tick … BOOM!”, the very title of which expressed Larson’s gnawing anxiety about the swiftness of time passing and the urgency because of it to achieve his creative aspirations. As satisfying as Miranda’s film was, it was still a movie, a medium once removed from our hearts.
            Cygnet Theatre has mounted a production of “tick, tick … BOOM!” directed by Katie Banville with musical direction by Dr. Randi Rudolph. Its cast is game – AJ Rafael, Emma Nossal and Leo Ebanks – and so are the musicians onstage with Rudolph: guitarist PJ Bovee, bassist Christian Reeves and drummer Danny Chavarin.
            So what’s missing? The intimacy of the solo show, in which Larson bared all.
            It figures then that the affecting moments in Cygnet’s “tick, tick … BOOM!” are those when Rafael sits alone at his electronic keyboard and sings from the well of determination inside him: on the questioning “30/90” (Larson’s addressing turning 30 years old in 1990); on the introspective “Why” and the closing “Louder Than Words,” when Larson reaffirmed his desire and his purpose in life.
            The musical numbers that incorporate Nossal, playing Larson’s girlfriend Susan among other characters, and Ebanks, principally portraying Larson’s friend Michael, have a stagy quality about them that to me are in opposition to the deeply insular doubts and resolve in the Jon character. They are important figures in his circle, make no mistake. Each represented a potential alternative life for Larson from the one in which he’d immersed himself: Susan wanted the two of them to move to Cape Cod and abandon the chaos of New York City; Michael had become a successful businessman with a grand house and a BMW – his buddy could have the same if he committed.
            I’m assuming Larson conveyed all this anecdotally in the solo “tick, tick … BOOM!” Maybe that was all that was needed.
            This is by no means a show with all perfect songs. “Green Green Dress” and “See Her Smile” are silly and saccharine, respectively. There are, however, enough rhythmic turns and lyrical inventions that suggest what was to come from Larson. Namely, “Rent,” in which rock ‘n’ roll didn’t come off like a novelty, so embedded was it into the foundation of the show, a modern-day “La Boheme.”
            The creative anxieties of its protagonist aside, “tick, tick … BOOM” is concerned with the on-the-cusp-of-30 Larson struggling to get his musical “Superbia” produced, along with those conflicts related to Susan and Michael. (A more serious aspect of his friendship with Michael comes later.) That it all ends with Jon (Rafael) redoubling his commitment is uplifting … until you remember that Larson wouldn’t have the time left that he wanted.
            Rafael is likable and sympathetic, though possibly in need of even more nervous energy as Jon. A proven dance artist (“Singin’ in the Rain” at New Village Arts, “42nd Street” at Moonlight in Vista), Nossal moves deftly onstage as Susan or Kareesa, the lead actor in “Superbia.” She’s also the finest singer in the cast. Ebanks does well with a part that feels under-developed to me.
            There’s a detailed and delightful SoHo apartment set by one of the best scenic designers in town, Yi-Chien Lee. It’s compatible with a show that, all of Larson’s life struggles aside, is a veritable love letter to New York City in all its guts and glory.
            On the evening I attended, the sound at Cygnet seemed over-amplified. Either it or I corrected along the way.
            We’re reminded in the director’s notes from Banville that this show began as “30/90” and then was called “Boho Days” (cringe) before becoming “tick, tick … BOOM!” This turned out to be an inspired evolution. The title not only works superbly for the show but reminds all of us that the days are not promised to us and that dreams are there for the taking if we only keep trying.
            “tick, tick … BOOM!” runs through Aug. 4 at Cygnet Theatre in Old Town.

Allison Spratt Pearce in "Every Brilliant Thing."                                                      Photo by Michael Pearce

            The way CCAE Theatricals’ production of “Every Brilliant Thing” works, four different actors will alternate performances over the course of its run as the narrator of the 70-minute show: Steven Lone, Bethany Slomka, DeAndre Simmons and, on opening night, Allison Spratt Pearce. This dynamic, coupled with the fact that the interactive “Every Brilliant Thing” employs “guest actors” from the audience each night, means that to some extent every performance is different too.
            This makes reviewing CCAE’s production of the work written by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe a bit awkward. I’m only reviewing a performance I saw, one with Spratt Pearce starring. To faithfully review “Every Brilliant Thing” I’d have to also catch performances with the other three as narrator.
            So I’m getting that out there at the start. I’m writing about the Allison Spratt Pearce “Every Brilliant Thing,” and of course about the format and underlying narrative foundation of the play.
            Forgive the lengthy preamble.
            I saw “Every Brilliant Thing” for the first time a few years ago when it was produced by Cygnet Theatre with Ro Boddie as narrator – sole narrator. Going in and having read about the interactive nature of the show I was dubious. Amateurs from the audience brought into the action and in some cases asked to improvise lines? Others in the house holding slips of paper with words to call out when cued? Recipes for disaster!
            But at least on the night I was at Cygnet, it worked. The tireless energy and quick wit of Ro Boddie mitigated any awkward audience issues.
            Happily, Allison Spratt Pearce does the same in Escondido. She’s already enjoying a banner year on the stage, this performance having been preceded by wonderful turns in CCAE Theatricals’ “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” and Moonlight Stage Productions’ “Into the Woods.” The role of the narrator in “Every Brilliant Thing,” which requires that the actor evolve from 7 years old into married adulthood, more than that demands emotional flexibility as well. This is someone, as written by Macmillan, with a mother who keeps attempting suicide, someone who strives to give that parent a reason to live by making up a list of all the wonderful (brilliant as the British would say -- this is a British creation) things, even the simple ones, that make life worth living. Ice cream (that’s No. 1 on the list). Winning something. Hammocks. Coffee. The list goes on. And on. And on.
            Spratt Pearce’s narrator runs the gamut not only from childhood to adulthood but from tears to laughter and back again. Equally gifted as a dramatic and comedic actor as she is, this comes as no surprise. This role also mandates that the narrator be athletic – constantly moving, dashing to and from locations among the seated. Not to be underestimated is the acuity to memorize complex numbers, who is seated where, prompts and cues.
            “Every Brilliant Thing” was in brilliant hands on opening night.
            As the script prescribes, the house lights are on during the performance and the show is staged in the round. CCAE Theatricals has created a compact space for this purpose, with three aisles of seats forming a square. It’s almost like the narrator is in the center of a rectangular boxing ring.
            These logistics have the effect of easing the movement from place to place for Spratt Pearce but more so allowing her – and audience members – to make eye contact. It’s interesting, as I did, to observe the faces of those sitting around or across from me during “Every Brilliant Thing,” to recognize how the most poignant passages of the narrative click with them.
            The beginning of the show, when the narrator re-enacts the merciful but heartbreaking putting down of a beloved pet, was personally hard to watch. I’ll leave it that. But this is a work about loss, about the tragic, inscrutable act of suicide. Unless you’re a stone, you’ll find moments in the telling that burrow beneath your skin.
            Emblematic of “Every Brilliant Thing” is a sequence in which Spratt Pearce, playing the narrator’s father, tries to explain to the 7 year old (an audience member fills in) why the child’s mother is in the hospital and, in a veiled way, why she doesn’t want to live.
            The volunteer from the crowd is asked to repeat only one word over and over during the conversation: “Why?”
            That is this play’s essential inquiry.
            Because improvisation is built into “Every Brilliant Thing,” its performances will change as the audiences change and the narrator builds the arc of the story with them. Whatever one you attend, be prepared to participate, if only by shouting out a brilliant thing yourself. You may on the way home, as I did, begin making your own list.
            “Every Brilliant Thing” runs through July 21 at the Center Theatre at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido.