The Jonathan Larson Project review – Rent composer’s lost songs find a glorious new home

How do you measure a year? Love is one answer, according to Jonathan Larson’s Rent, but what about songs? This tribute, which ran off-Broadway last year, reveals the industriousness of the composer and lyricist, who died aged 35 in 1996. But it also highlights the calibre of his wealth of lesser-known material, written for obscure cabarets, cut from his musicals or otherwise unused, these spare parts stored in a Library of Congress archive. A selection of 18 songs make up a pleasingly eclectic revue conceived by Jennifer Ashley Tepper.

Take the opener, Greene Street, written as a 23-year-old newcomer to New York. With propulsive piano, it’s a huge crush of a song, in awe of the city while the sun bursts through on a snowy day. Larson puts a positively bucolic spin on this SoHo address (whose name “don’t mean money, honey!”) as the new arrival, also green by nature, receives a wink from a stranger amid the urban anonymity. There’s the hint of a jingle or theme tune but it’s irresistible, blissfully shared by the cast of five.