Adolescent Anxiety: The Musical

Bruce Weber:

He was never much of a student, but Jason Robert Brown was a precocious kid. Growing up in Monsey, N.Y., about an hour north of Manhattan, he became enthralled by music at age 4, was taking lessons at 5. At his first recital -- age 6 -- he not only outplayed his teacher's other students, he also supplied the verbal patter of a natural entertainer.

"He just started chatting with the audience," his mother, Deborah Brown, recalled. "I was floored. Nobody knew where it came from."

Once, before he could write in script, he filched a checkbook from one of his parents, wrote out a check and sent it to a mail-order record club. Fortunately he didn't get all the particulars right, and the check was returned because it was unsigned. Teachers plucked him from third grade and plopped him into the fourth, not because of straight A's but because he wasn't paying attention.

"He was good in everything, but if it wasn't music, he didn't do the work," said Mrs. Brown, a former English teacher.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at October 4, 2008 3:11 AM
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