See A Strange Loop
It's a wild voyage on A Strange Loop. Michael R. Jackson's musical is the defiant outcome of a single and individual authorial vision in a Broadway scene dominated by performances that frequently seem designed by corporations for audiences of focus groups. As Jackson's apparent alter ego, a queer, Black writer and composer named Usher (Jaquel Spivey), battles to define himself amidst the traps of sex, race, family, body image, religion, and entertainment, this wide-ranging extravaganza dives headfirst into a swirl of ambition and frustration. It is irresistible and howls with laughter and pain.
The show, cleverly directed by Stephen Brackett, created a sensation when it made its Playwrights Horizons debut in 2019. Now, after making numerous top-ten lists and receiving numerous awards (including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award), it has made it to Broadway without compromising its conflicted, difficult, and occasionally actively family-unfriendly content. Usher informs us in the opening song: "A Strange Loop will include Black shit! " The tracks are pleasantly melodic and smart. White shit, too! You'll get both downtown and uptown! Truth-telling and buttfucking, please!
- What is it? A Pulitzer Prize-winning drama featuring a queer, Black writer-composer named Usher (Jaquel Spivey), who struggles to define himself amid traps of sex, race, family, body image, religion and entertainment.
- Why go? It’s screamingly funny and howlingly hurt, and it’s unmissable. The songs are welcomingly tuneful and clever.
