Lin-Manuel Miranda is filling out the cast of his Netflix adaptation of Rent writer Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical musical Tick, Tick… Boom!, with Deadline reporting that Alexandra Shipp from the recent X-Men movies will be starring alongside Andrew Garfield (who was just cast last week). Shipp and Garfield will also be joined by Vanessa Hudgens, who, appropriately enough, previously appeared in Fox’s (sort of) live production of Rent at the beginning of the year, as well as Tony nominee Robin de Jesus.
The story of Tick, Tick… Boom! follows an aspiring theater composer working as a waiter while trying to create what he hopes will be the greatest musical of all time, but there’s one big issue: He’ll be 30 soon, and at that point his life will effectively be over. His roommate has even taken a corporate job that pays a lot of money, which was bad in the ‘90s because it was a betrayal of the artistic lifestyle and is bad now because corporations are soul-sucking hell monsters that kill everything that is good and pure—so, in a way, this story is more timely than ever.
