NEW YORK — A few minutes after zipping through the patter song “Therapy” in a Times Square rehearsal studio, the cast members of “Tick, Tick … Boom!” have plopped down in a line of chairs opposite director Neil Patrick Harris for their own opportunity to, as that tune’s lyrics put it, share a feeling.

It’s a mid-January afternoon, and by this point the Kennedy Center production’s accelerated schedule has afforded the actors time only to read through Jonathan Larson’s script, block the scenes and do an early “stumble-through” of the show. As the musical’s stars, Tony winner Brandon Uranowitz and nominees Denée Benton and Grey Henson, decompress and debrief, a consensus forms that they should spend the rest of the day fine-tuning certain songs and scenes in a way the demanding timeline has not yet afforded.

All the while, Harris — himself a decorated performer with a Tony and five Emmys — responds to his actors’ feedback with his own tranquil thoughts and a slew of affable affirmations: “For sure.” “Totally got it.” “Don’t disagree at all.” “Heard.”

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“It’s really open,” says choreographer Paul McGill, who first worked with Harris when the actor starred in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” on Broadway a decade ago. “Everyone has a voice. Everyone has the opportunity to share what their perspective is, and I think that helps the show because it is about the artist’s perspective.”

Larson originally wrote and performed “Tick, Tick … Boom!” as a rock monologue, based on his experiences as a flailing musical theater composer approaching his 30th birthday. Following the “Rent” creator’s sudden 1996 death, the show was converted into a three-actor piece. But for this production, which launches Friday and runs through Feb. 4 as part of the Kennedy Center’s Broadway Center Stage series, Harris’s team has further expanded the scope by adding four ensemble members and dramatic projections that will help the modest musical envelop the sprawling Eisenhower Theater.

To Harris, the do-it-all star celebrated for his sitcom prowess and stints hosting the Oscars, Emmys and Tonys, the opportunity to direct “Tick, Tick … Boom!” is a decades-in-the-making passion project. After playing the lead role of Mark in the second national tour of “Rent” in 1997, Harris starred in a London production of “Tick, Tick … Boom!” in 2005. Five years later, he returned to Larson’s oeuvre and directed “Rent” at the Hollywood Bowl.

“Of all the processes — traveling internationally to be in a movie or going to Hollywood to be on a TV show or being in a rehearsal room creating a thing — I think the rehearsal room is my favorite,” Harris says during an interview. “It’s the safe space where everyone is willing to try and fail and try and fail and be flop sweaty, and get to know each other and create a family together and create art together.”

Jeffrey Finn, the Kennedy Center’s executive producer of theater, says his affection for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2021 film adaptation inspired him to bring “Tick, Tick … Boom!” to D.C. But while Larson originally presented it as a cabaret show, sitting at a piano and performing all the parts himself, Finn pinpointed the potential in the pop-rock score — featuring such earworms as “30/90,” “Johnny Can’t Decide” and “Louder Than Words” — for a scaled-up showcase.

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Aware of Harris’s history with Larson’s work, Finn approached the “Uncoupled” actor about pivoting back to the director’s chair. When Harris quickly committed, the “Tick, Tick … Boom!” countdown began.

“It felt like, ‘I’ve now got the anchor that makes me feel so confident of something new and exciting, but with his connection to the past,’” Finn says, adding that Harris understood “we wanted to do something with ‘Tick, Tick … Boom!’ that’s never been done before.”

Harris’s Larson idolization runs deep. The 50-year-old recalls he was filming the movie “The Proposition” in the fall of 1996 in Boston — after “Doogie Howser, M.D.” and years before “How I Met Your Mother” — when he attended opening night of the first “Rent” national tour and befriended the cast. A few weeks later, Harris found himself celebrating Thanksgiving with a group of actors whose bohemian bonds mirrored those of the characters they portrayed in Larson’s seminal depiction of the East Village’s arts community during the AIDS epidemic.

“They had lived wildly varied lives, and really meant ‘no day but today’ and meant ‘there’s only us, there’s only this, forget regret or life is yours to miss’ — like, authentically meant it,” Harris says, quoting Larson’s “Rent” lyrics. “I just found it super profound that someone’s intention in their musical theater work could create that community.”

After film commitments kept Harris from playing Jon — the “Tick, Tick … Boom!” protagonist based on Larson — in an off-Broadway production, he finally took on the role for an acclaimed run at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory. Harris cherished the experience and connected with the character’s internal struggle, as Jon debates the merits of art vs. commerce while workshopping an abstract sci-fi musical called “Superbia.” Now that he’s directing Uranowitz in the role, Harris asserts that he “wouldn’t dare think that my interpretation was singular” but relishes the clarity with which he and his star can deconstruct the character’s intentions.

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“To understand ‘Tick, Tick … Boom!,’ you really have to understand ‘Rent’ and you have to understand Jonathan Larson and you have to understand ‘Superbia,’” Uranowitz says. “You have to understand and have all of that information. It just creates a fuller, more detailed, vivid picture.”

Part of that picture will be the projections, which Harris pitched to Finn as part of his initial vision for the production. A 1990s-style camcorder will live-stream Uranowitz’s face onto the set’s back wall — honoring the intended intimacy of the show, Harris reasons, while making it accessible to a larger house.

A lover of magic, Harris acknowledges that having such an ambitious trick up his sleeve comes with risks, especially for a staging that has only two days of technical rehearsal. “We’ll see what happens,” he says. “But I feel like I’d rather do bigger swings and try and expand the show in a new way.”

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Although this production marks Harris’s first directorial effort in more than a decade, he’s confident the next one — whether it’s onstage or on-screen — will be sooner rather than later.

“I’d love to do it as much as possible in as many different ways as possible,” Harris says. “I’ve planted some seeds that I’m excited to see grow. This is a nice first step in this next chapter of my life. But yeah, that’s the plan: fewer production days spent in a trailer and more production days spent creating.”

If you go

Tick, Tick … Boom!

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Eisenhower Theater, 2700 F St. NW. 202-467-4600. kennedy-center.org.

Dates: Jan. 26-Feb. 4.

Prices: $59-$349.

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