A Strange Loop
A Strange Loop is a metafictional musical written by Michael R. Jackson, centering on Usher, a young Black gay theater usher who composes a work about his struggles with self-hatred, familial pressures, racial stereotypes, and sexual desires while working as an usher for The Lion King.[1][2] The production premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in May 2019, earning acclaim for its raw exploration of recursive self-examination and psychological turmoil, before transferring to Broadway's Lyceum Theatre in April 2022 following delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[3][4] It received the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, cited for transforming personal marginalization into artistic affirmation, and swept the 2022 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score, marking it as a landmark in contemporary American theater despite its explicit depictions of sex, profanity, and themes of internalized racism and trauma that drew polarized responses from audiences and critics.[1][5][6] The show's structure embodies its titular "strange loop," a self-referential cycle mirroring Douglas Hofstadter's philosophical concept of tangled hierarchies in cognition, as Usher's thoughts manifest as a chorus of his own conflicting "Thoughts" that both torment and propel his creative process.[2][7] Notable for its innovative blend of R&B, gospel, and pop influences with dialogue-heavy scenes, A Strange Loop has toured internationally and continues to provoke discussion on the boundaries of autobiographical art in addressing intersectional identity without resolution or uplift.[8][9]Creation and Development
Origins and Inspiration
Michael R. Jackson initiated the development of A Strange Loop in 2001, at age 21, following his graduation from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in playwriting. Residing in a Jamaica, Queens apartment, he penned an initial monologue titled "Why I Can't Get Work," which captured the protagonist's frustrations as an aspiring Black queer writer facing professional barriers in theater.[10] This piece evolved during Jackson's subsequent enrollment in NYU's graduate program for musical-theater writing, where he composed the project's first song, "Memory Song," drawing stylistic cues from Tori Amos's emotive piano-driven compositions.[10] His contemporaneous employment as an usher at Broadway's The Lion King provided direct impetus, informing the lead character Usher's mundane job amid creative ambitions and embedding reflections on commercial theater's racial and sexual dynamics.[11] By the late 2000s, Jackson restructured the work as a full musical, finalizing the title A Strange Loop around 2010. The name derives from cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter's formulation of a "strange loop" as a self-referential feedback mechanism underlying consciousness and identity, wherein the self emerges from tangled hierarchies of symbols—a concept Jackson adapted to depict recursive personal turmoil.[12] It also nods to Liz Phair's 1994 song "Strange Loop" from Whip-Smart, aligning with the musical's introspective lyricism. Early workshops at NYU, directed by Stephen Brackett, refined the ensemble's portrayal of Usher's "Thoughts" by casting queer Black performers, crystallizing the show's meta-structure of internal multiplicity.[10] The musical's thematic core stems from Jackson's autobiographical confrontation with intersecting identities—Blackness, queerness, and artistic aspiration—manifesting as a cycle of self-loathing and aspiration. Key artistic influences include Phair's Exile in Guyville for its confessional, humorous indie-rock candor, which shaped Usher's "inner white girl" voice and stream-of-consciousness songs; Tyler Perry's melodramas, such as Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, critiqued for their reductive depictions of Black pathology and HIV/AIDS stigma, echoing Jackson's personal grief over a friend's death; and William Finn's In Trousers, taught by Finn at NYU, for its raw, non-linear excavation of gay selfhood. Broader precedents encompass Stephen Sondheim's Company and A Chorus Line for concept-driven introspection, alongside Jem and the Holograms cartoons for exaggerated familial archetypes, blending high and low cultural registers to probe causality in identity formation.[13][14]Writing Process and Workshops
Michael R. Jackson began developing A Strange Loop in the late 1990s or early 2000s as a monologue titled "Why I Can’t Get Work," initially performed at the Rebel Verses youth arts festival (now at Vineyard Theatre) while living in Jamaica, Queens.[10][15] The piece originated from personal reflections shortly after Jackson's undergraduate graduation, evolving from a solo narrative into a full musical through iterative revisions spanning nearly two decades.[16][17] During his time in the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program in the early 2000s, Jackson composed the first song, "Memory Song," drawing influences from artists such as Tori Amos and Darius Marcel Smith, which marked the shift toward a musical format blending original compositions with stylistic nods to figures like Liz Phair, whose album Exile in Guyville inspired the title A Strange Loop by 2010.[10][15] The narrative structure, featuring the protagonist Usher and his internalized "Thoughts," emerged in the mid-2000s, with a 2004 workshop performance of an early segment, "Fast Food Town Off Broadway," at Ars Nova, directed by Maria Manuela Goyanes and attended by about 20 people, some of whom walked out due to its provocative content.[10] Gestalt therapy sessions in the 2010s further refined the ending, incorporating the title song to resolve the metafictional loop of self-referential creation.[10] Key collaborations shaped the workshops: Jackson met director Stephen Brackett and co-collaborator John-Andrew Morrison during an early 2010s reading of another project, Only Children, leading to Brackett directing subsequent iterations and suggesting the casting of queer Black actors as Usher's Thoughts for authenticity.[10] Mid-2010s sessions at NYU with Brackett focused on revisions amid production challenges, nearly causing Jackson to abandon the work.[10] Further development occurred at the Musical Theatre Factory, a nonprofit incubator, with workshops in 2015–2016 hosted above the Raw Fuck Club on West 40th Street and supported by producer Shakina Nayfack, yielding positive feedback that encouraged continuation.[10][15][18] A pivotal 2018 workshop secured backing from producer Barbara Whitman of Playwrights Horizons, paving the way for the 2019 off-Broadway premiere.[10] These stages emphasized the piece's conceptual evolution from cabaret-style performance to a structurally innovative musical exploring identity and recursion.[10][15]Synopsis
A Strange Loop centers on Usher, a young Black gay man and aspiring musical theater writer who works as an usher for a Broadway production of The Lion King. Dissatisfied with his day job and grappling with profound self-doubt, Usher endeavors to create a musical about his own experiences as a fat Black gay artist navigating identity, desire, and societal expectations in contemporary New York City.[18][19] The narrative unfolds as a meta-exploration of Usher's creative process, where an ensemble of six performers embodies his personified "Thoughts"—manifestations of his inner conflicts, including daily self-loathing, parental voices, sexual fantasies, and cultural pressures related to race, sexuality, and family. This recursive structure depicts the "strange loop" of self-reflection, as the musical-within-the-musical mirrors Usher's struggles with artistic integrity, internalized racism, homophobia, and the AIDS legacy, culminating in a raw confrontation with his psyche.[20][2][21]Cast and Characters
The musical's protagonist is Usher, a Black, gay, HIV-positive composer and lyricist in his late twenties who ushers for a The Lion King production while grappling with self-doubt, familial expectations, and creative ambitions as he attempts to write a musical about himself.[21] In the 2019 Off-Broadway world premiere at Playwrights Horizons, the role was originated by Larry Owens.[2] Jaquel Spivey assumed the role for the 2022 Broadway production at the Lyceum Theatre, marking his Broadway debut.[22] Supporting Usher is an ensemble of six performers who portray his internal "Thoughts"—manifestations of his psyche that voice racial self-loathing, sexual anxieties, religious guilt, and other psychological conflicts—while doubling as external figures including Usher's mother and father, a white boyfriend, a church pastor, and industry gatekeepers.[23] [21] The same ensemble performed this collective role in both the Off-Broadway premiere and the Broadway run, with individual actors assigned primary "Thoughts" as follows:| Role | Actor |
|---|---|
| Thought 1 | L Morgan Lee |
| Thought 2 | James Jackson Jr. |
| Thought 3 | John-Michael Lyles |
| Thought 4 | John-Andrew Morrison |
| Thought 5 | Jason Veasey |
| Thought 6 | Antwayn Hopper |
Musical Numbers
The musical A Strange Loop consists of 17 numbers, as presented in the original Broadway cast recording released on June 10, 2022.[25]| No. | Title |
|---|---|
| 1 | Intermission Song |
| 2 | Today |
| 3 | We Wanna Know |
| 4 | Inner White Girl |
| 5 | Didn’t Want Nothin’ |
| 6 | Exile in Gayville |
| 7 | Second Wave |
| 8 | Tyler Perry Writes Real Life |
| 9 | Writing a Gospel Play |
| 10 | A Sympathetic Ear |
| 11 | Inwood Daddy |
| 12 | Boundaries |
| 13 | Periodically |
| 14 | Didn’t Want Nothin’ Reprise |
| 15 | Precious Little Dream / AIDS Is God’s Punishment |
| 16 | Memory Song |
| 17 | A Strange Loop |