Rachel Bloom's Off-Broadway Show Helped Her Process Adam Schlesinger's Death: 'You Need Humor to Cope' (Exclusive)

Schlesinger, an Emmy and Grammy winner who worked with Bloom, died in April 2020 after contracting COVID-19

Rachel Bloom talks to death onstage during her off-Broadway show. No really — she confronts the guy.

The interactions shape much of the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend star and co-creator's production, aptly titled Death, Let Me Do My Show. It's running through Jan. 6 at the Orpheum Theatre in N.Y.C., and serves as a catharsis, of sorts, for Bloom.

Death was born from a 2019 script and musical numbers, but followed personal tragedy for Bloom and a time of great change. Just a week after Bloom's daughter was born in 2020, her longtime friend and writing partner, Adam Schlesinger, died after contracting COVID-19. Schlesinger, a Grammy and Emmy winner who co-founded the band Fountains of Wayne, had worked with Bloom on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and the pair was set to write a Broadway musical adaptation of The Nanny.

"I had the idea early on," Bloom tells PEOPLE of reexamining the 2019 version of the show. "I'd done so much work thinking of new jokes and new songs and I was like, 'I can't just do that special.' "

So while much was stripped away in favor of a conversation with death, Bloom's signature wit still is prevalent throughout the darkly hilarious one-woman musical-comedy (though a laugh-out-loud song about a NSFW-smelling tree remains).

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Through tragedy, Bloom has relied on humor: "It's human to joke. ... Especially in the case of Adam, who is the kind of main grief story in this show. Adam was incredibly non-precious and non-sacred."

Related: Rachel Bloom on Daughter's Birth, Losing Pal Adam Schlesinger to Coronavirus: It Was 'Intense'

Through Death, Bloom tells PEOPLE she "tried to make a show that Adam would enjoy, and part of that is not being sacred with things and not being precious, and anything is fair game to joke about. You need humor to cope."

"There's something about laughter that defies death," she says.

The show has really helped Bloom to move through the sudden loss of Schlesinger and the "anguish" she felt experiencing new motherhood at the same time as she dealt with intense grief.

"It's forced me to think about and reflect on experiences in a way that I don't know if I would've otherwise reflected," says Bloom.

She thinks of "genius" Schlesinger often, but there are moments where his presence looms the largest: "Whenever I'm writing, whenever I'm performing."

"I think that the act of creating is when I really miss him," Bloom tells PEOPLE. "And then also with friends, having a good time. He was a really wonderful hang and he was really social and he was just easy to be around."

While Death, as a whole, is not just about Schlesinger — it explores the trials and tribulations of human life, and even pet loss — Bloom says the late musician's family's reaction to her work has been meaningful.

"I wanted to make a show that would be a tribute to him, but also really work through a lot of these emotions that I was having as an artist post-2020," she says of their positive reactions. "And so that means a lot to me."

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