![]() ![]() By the end of the show he wants to change. Until Usher's perspective changes, he can't change. Or maybe it is and you just need to change your perspective on it.īent: Usher's inner thoughts include an "Inner White Girl" and a "Self-Hating Gay Black Man," among many others. But if you could be in the third person and watch yourself, you might learn that not everything is as you think it is. When you're a young person everything is heightened. That's the most important thing, not whether a specific thing did or didn't happen. How reliable are his perceptions when he's in a place of such self-hatred? In the piece, Usher is dramatizing his own self-loathing. So when you say, "This is something that happened to me," it is actually my perception of what happened. The show is about self-perception versus reality. So autobiographical wouldn't be totally accurate. No one knows what's 100 percent true and what's one percent true. My show draws from personal experience but is very much art and fiction. I am not writing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Jackson: For me, autobiography suggests a formal conceit that's linear. When Stephen came on board, he said, "What if we did this with all black and queer-identifying people?" That opened up so many possibilities and almost everyone from that time is still in the show.īent: You call the show "self-referential" instead of autobiographical. It turned into A Strange Loop and we had readings that were cast across race and gender. Eventually it became a one-man show, but I realized it wanted it to be a musical, even though I knew it would be unconventional. "Memories" was just a stand-alone song, but it went over well in class. So all these musical ideas I had been carrying around since middle school and high school, lyric writing gave those musical impulses somewhere to go. I grew up playing piano and was in an all-city choir. I wrote a personal monologue called "Why I Can't Get Work." It was about a young, black, gay man walking around New York and reflecting on his life and family. I was living in a little old lady's house in Jamaica, Queens, looking for jobs and applying to grad schools. ![]() Jackson: After I graduated from NYU with a BFA in playwriting I was a bit lost. Days later you'll still be humming it.) TDF Stages chatted with Jackson about the evolution of the show, Liz Phair and cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter's connection to the piece, and the life-saving power of musical theatre.Įliza Bent: I understand A Strange Loop began as a monologue. ("Memories," the elegiac penultimate number, has a deceptively simple melody that builds into a looping aria. All the while, Usher's inner thoughts - embodied by six actors who also play his parents, critics and lovers - keep invading the stage and his life.ĭelightfully meta and sui generis, A Strange Loop has a kind of Russian Doll quality, not only because of the way the story keeps folding in on itself, but also due to its earworm songs. As he writes and rewrites a musical about his life, he dates men and attempts to self-actualize. ![]() Jackson's new musical A Strange Loop, currently at Playwrights Horizons and produced in association with, focuses on Usher (Larry Owens), a young, black, queer aspiring artist trying to navigate a messy, biased world. Jackson on his unconventional tuner at Playwrights Horizons This interview was conducted during the show's Off-Broadway run at Playwrights Horizons. It does not store any personal data.After critically acclaimed runs in NYC and DC, the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical A Strange Loop transfers to Broadway's Lyceum Theatre, with performances beginning April 6, 2022. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. ![]()
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