Jonathan Larson received the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Rent, the libretto to which is available from Applause (978-1-55783-737-0.) Larson first performed tick, tick ... BOOM! as a rock monologue at Second Stage Theatre, The Village Gate, and New York Theatre Workshop. He died unexpectedly of an aortic aneurysm on January 25, 1996, 10 days before his 36th birthday.