Usher is a Black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical: a piece about a Black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical...

Michael R. Jackson's blistering original musical follows a young artist at war with a host of demons - not least of which are the punishing thoughts in his own head - in an attempt to understand his own strange loop.

A Strange Loop received its world premiere at Playwrights Horizons in New York in 2019. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical at the 2022 Tony Awards - and every other 'Best Musical' award on Broadway.

It received its British premiere at the Barbican Theatre, London, in 2023, with Michael R. Jackson winning Best Composer, Lyricist or Book Writer at the 2023 Stage Debut Awards.

'A metafictional musical that tracks the creative process of an artist transforming issues of identity, race and sexuality that once pushed him to the margins of the cultural mainstream into a meditation on universal human fears and insecurities' Pulitzer Prize Committee

About the Author

Michael R. Jackson is an American playwright, composer and lyricist, originally from Detroit, Michigan.

Reviews

'Explosively imaginative. Dazzlingly one-of-a-kind'

* Washington Post *

'Audacious and uproarious... a meta masterpiece'

* Guardian *

'A dazzling ride. No measure of praise could be too much'

* New York Times *

'Screamingly funny. Unmissable. The musical we've been waiting for'

* Time Out *

'To watch this show is to enter, by some urgent, bawdy magic, an ecstatic and infinitely more colorful version of the famous surreal lithograph by M. C. Escher: the hand that lifts from the page, becoming almost real, then draws another hand, which returns the favor. Which came first? A Strange Loop is complex, teasing, thrilling'

* New Yorker *

'Brilliant... Harrowing... one-of-a-kind... Hyper-observant and hyper-verbal, Jackson lets his remorselessly satirical eye wander, to hilarious and devastating effect... What makes A Strange Loop so powerful, is not an attempt to find "our common humanity" but an insistence on speaking its own idiosyncratic truth'

* Vogue *

'An exhilarating cocktail of hilarious lyrical complexity... Michael R. Jackson is a musical talent with deep wells of invention'

* Time Out New York *

'Phenomenal... both a raw and unflinching interrogation of identity and the most furiously entertaining show on Broadway'

* Variety *

'Dazzling... spectacularly bold... a challenging, uncompromising show... irreverent and funny... Jackson's songs are slick, tuneful and accessible... An enormous number of musicals have opened in the West End in the last couple of months, but none of them have a tenth of the audacity and imagination of A Strange Loop'

* Time Out *

'Triumphant, emotionally lacerating... I sat with my mouth agape, astonished and grateful that something so brutally honest and rigorously constructed had finally broken through to a Broadway stage'

* LA Times *

'A blast and a revelation... an astonishing tour-de-force'

* WhatsOnStage *

'Magnificent... a strikingly original, highly entertaining tour of identity politics and the struggles of selfhood'

* Guardian *

'A thrillingly strange, playful and hilarious new musical, stuffed with catchy tunes... extraordinary... I'd watch it again in an instant'

* Evening Standard *

'A cleverly complex piece of drama, that's also incredibly uplifting and joyful... musical theatre heaven'

* Theatre Weekly *

'An experience you won't forget'

* Independent *

'Magnificent... dazzling... joyous, clever and alive. Don't miss it'

* iNews *


Awards
Winner of Best Composer, Lyricist or Book Writer, Stage Debut Awards 2023 and Best Musical & Best Book of a Musical, Tony Awards 2022 and Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2020.



Book Information
ISBN 9781839042355
Author Michael R. Jackson
Format Paperback
Page Count 88
Imprint Nick Hern Books
Publisher Nick Hern Books
Weight(grams) 106g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 6mm