Its first line is “the fire you like so much in me is the mark of someone so adamantly free.” The musical’s title comes from the same-titled Liz Phair song. I do have days when I feel some of the same feeling Usher feels but I’m also able to step away from that and say nothing’s wrong with you.” “My situation hadn’t changed a lot but I was able to live in the world. “It took him many years of writing and creating more material, songs, and thoughts to get some objectivity, to be able to see the problem Usher’s grappling with, and of course, that’s himself.”Įventually, Jackson realized his own worth. Since its conception, the piece has always been about a young Black gay man trying to understand himself, says Jackson. It harkens back to the old tradition in musical theater where people get their big break.”Īlong with Spivey are original cast members Antwayn Hopper, L Morgan Lee, John-Michael Lyles, James Jackson, Jr., John-Andrew Morrison and Jason Veasey who play Usher’s wildly uncontained Thoughts. Jackson explains, “This creates another loop – ‘A Strange Loop’ was my professional debut too, and his casting imbues the piece with authenticity, rebel sprit, and individual identity. Seeing those things come together surprised some folks”Īt Woolly Mammoth, Jaquel Spivey is making his professional theater debut as Usher. When the play happened, they knew me as a songwriter and not a book writer. He remembers, “People slowly began to take notice of my music. His first public concert at Ars Nova in 2008. And I was like I would like to be on Broadway on the terms of what I bring to it.” And hence, his “big, Black and queer-ass American Broadway show” was on its way.īefore emerging as the prize-winning librettist/lyricist/composer, Jackson kicked around New York for a while. So, if it’s just that more than anything, I could rock with that. Jackson never really imagined Broadway was for him until he was invited to watch a Tony Award ceremony rehearsal: “I had a paradigm shift. And next stop is Broadway if all goes as planned, says Jackson. Woolly Mammoth’s version is its only regional production to date. It would have been foolish to ask me to tame it down.”Īfter some tweaking, his show premiered off-Broadway at Playwright Horizons in 2019. As the piece evolved into a musical, his storytelling remained gloriously unabashed: “By the time anyone expressed any interest, it was inextricably linked to the fact that it was that it was. He included his disdain for billionaire Tyler Perry’s product (“his plays are worse for Black people than dia-fuckin-betes!”), and some starkly authentic depictions of less-than-romantic sexual liaisons. There was no trajectory attached so I was going to do what the fuck I wanted with it.” “At the time, I was interested in audience response. “A Strange Loop” began as thinly veiled monologue first performed in 2004. Instead, when he wasn’t busy earning undergrad and graduate degrees in playwrighting and musical theater writing, respectively, at New York University or ushering on Broadway, he spent long brooding nights walking the streets listening to the music of potty-mouthed rock icon Liz Phair. Of course, I’d always been told the minute I got to New York I’d find lots of glorious gay sex, but that wasn’t remotely the truth.” I like to call it self-referential.”Īt 18, Jackson was burning to get away from small-town, middle-class Black life in Michigan: “I wanted to be in the city and experience what I thought would be exciting things. “It’s about a young person dealing with a lot of self-hatred. Yet, Jackson, 40, labels his astonishingly real musical as an emotional rather than exactly factual autobiography. And that pretty much describes the author’s 20-something self. Usher is a Black queer writer working a dreary day job while writing his original musical – about a Black queer writer working a dreary day job while writing his original musical.
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