Jackson, Michael R

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      in Music

      In Washington, a Princess Party and a Carnival of Self-Loathing

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      Two shows with Broadway aspirations, “Once Upon a One More Time” and “A Strange Loop,” represent opposite extremes of what a big, mainstream production can be.WASHINGTON — Sidney Harman Hall was bustling before a recent matinee of “Once Upon a One More Time,” a revisionist fairy tale mash-up scored with Britney Spears songs at Shakespeare Theater Company here. People were taking group selfies at one of two step-and-repeats. A few girls — and women — tittered in tiaras. Purple T-shirts and tote bags with the show’s title and the names of storybook princesses were being sold. And the theater, which has a capacity of about 700, had no empty seats in sight. At least from the outside, “Once Upon a One More Time” looked like the kind of splashy show you might find on Broadway.I was in Washington for the weekend, at the first post-opening matinee of the show, and it wasn’t the only musical in the neighborhood with Broadway aspirations; the second show I saw here, Woolly Mammoth’s production of “A Strange Loop,” by Michael R. Jackson, has just announced plans for a Broadway run in the spring. It’s a more daring work: a meta show about a queer Black playwright writing a show about a queer Black playwright that opened Off Broadway in 2019 and won the Pulitzer Prize.Two very different shows in two very different theaters less than a mile apart: “Once Upon a One More Time” and “A Strange Loop” represent opposite extremes of what a Broadway production can be.Written by Jon Hartmere and directed and choreographed by the husband-and-wife team Keone and Mari Madrid, “Once Upon a One More Time” is set inside an abstract representation of the world of children’s storybooks. That’s to say that whenever a child opens a book of fairy tales, the denizens of this magical kingdom must act out the classic plots for the reader. Meanwhile, the princes and princesses — Snow White (Aisha Jackson), the Little Mermaid (Lauren Zakrin), Sleeping Beauty (Ashley Chiu), the Princess and the Pea (Morgan Weed), Rapunzel (Wonu Ogunfowora) and several others — hang around like on-call workers, waiting for their boss, the Narrator, to direct them through the scenes of their tales, which they must obediently act out in order to have their happily ever after.Princesses take a stand: From left, Lauren Zakrin, Selene Haro, Ashley Chiu, Adrianna Weir (seated), Wonu Ogunfowora, Aisha Jackson, Jennifer Florentino and Amy Hillner Larsen.Mathew MurphyBut Cinderella (Briga Heelan) isn’t happy, and becomes even less so after she learns that her Prince Charming (Justin Guarini) is being paid for his services while she isn’t. Then Cinderella meets the Notorious O.F.G. (that’s Original Fairy Godmother, comically played by Brooke Dillman), who comes all the way from the mystical land of Flatbush, Brooklyn, to give poor Cin a copy of “The Feminine Mystique.” Suddenly enlightened by feminist theory, Cinderella leads her fellow princesses in protest, demanding that they be allowed to write their own stories.The audience cheered at the more clever pairings of popular Spears songs with important plot points, like an unfaithful prince singing “Oops! … I Did It Again” or Cinderella’s evil stepmother singing “Toxic.”But as I watched the show, I wondered: Who is the target audience for this? So many Broadway shows are aimed at a general audience, and similarly, “Once Upon a One More Time” seems to want to appeal to both children and adults. The fairy tale premise (nodding to shows like “Into the Woods” and “Shrek”) and the earnest sermonizing seem to point to an audience of kids. But the lines of dialogue about microaggressions (the Narrator warns Cinderella about being “difficult,” getting “hysterical” and using a “shrill” voice, all of which made the audience gasp), along with some mild sex jokes, are clearly aimed at knowing adults. Plus, call me conventional, but I doubt a children’s show would include a song called “Work Bitch.” In aiming for a Broadway stage, “Once Upon a One More Time” still seems to be figuring out what its prospective audience would look like.With its blatant messaging about female empowerment and revisionist approach, not unlike two recent Broadway musicals — “Six” and “Diana,” both of which recast famous women from history as self-possessed and self-reliant feminist icons — “Once Upon a One More Time” reflects the broad strokes of modern-day feminism but shies away from anything too hefty or complex. That includes the pink-pigtailed elephant in the room: Spears herself, who has documented what she has called years of exploitation in her quest to end her conservatorship. So particularly the Britney faithful will most likely be disappointed to find the pop star absent from a show largely based on the products of her career.“A Strange Loop” has announced plans to transfer to Broadway in the spring. From left: James Jackson Jr., L Morgan Lee, Antwayn Hopper, John-Andrew Morrison, Jaquel Spivey (seated right), Jason Veasey and John-Michael Lyles.Marc J. FranklinAt Woolly Mammoth’s space, just a few blocks from Sidney Harman Hall, there were no selfie stations or gift kiosks. The theater seats less than 300 people, and the content of Jackson’s “A Strange Loop” could not be more different from “Once Upon a One More Time.”Directed by Stephen Brackett, “A Strange Loop” is a carnival of its protagonist’s self-loathing, his insecurities, his introspective reveries on sexuality and identity, society, family and religion. It’s hilarious until it turns vicious, and vice versa. And it defines itself through a critique of commercial productions, like the long-running Broadway show “The Lion King,” as well as through a deconstruction of the expectations society may have of a Black, queer artist, which can crush brave new work.The musical rejects the polite, family-friendly themes and the tidy endings of what its protagonist, a Broadway usher named Usher (Jaquel Spivey), sees at work. Full of references to sexual assault and racism, and with enough offensive language to fill a gallon-size swear jar, “A Strange Loop” aims to bring taboo topics to mainstream theater. The Woolly Mammoth crowd snapped and mmhmm-ed to lines breaking down queer and race politics; at one point a man in the row behind me got out of his seat and waved his arms around to the music as if he were at a rave — if raves played devastating songs about homophobia and abuse.Walking out of the theater afterward, I overheard a group of friends wonder if “A Strange Loop” could go to Broadway. One woman had reservations; she liked it, she said, but — and here she paused before awkwardly stumbling through her qualifier — it was a musical about AIDS.I held my tongue — because I could’ve mentioned that “Rent” and “Angels in America” were two Broadway shows about AIDS. Or that “A Strange Loop” is about so much more than AIDS. Or that this season, Broadway had “Dana H.,” a show about kidnapping and assault, and “Is This a Room,” about a real F.B.I. investigation — both fantastic, critically acclaimed works of art. Or that “Slave Play” brought similarly explicit language and sexual content to Broadway in 2019 and has now reopened.Or I could’ve simply said that this beautifully brutal work of theater is already headed to Broadway. More

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      in Theater

      ‘A Strange Loop’ Won the Pulitzer. Now It’s Coming to Broadway.

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      The playwright Michael R. Jackson describes his musical as “a big, Black and queer-ass American Broadway show.”“A Strange Loop,” Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning meta-musical, is coming to Broadway this spring.The show’s producers announced on Monday that the musical would run at the Lyceum Theater; they did not announce specific dates, but it is planning to open before the eligibility deadline for this season’s Tony Awards, which is expected to be in late April.The show is a self-referential musical comedy about a Black gay musical theater writer trying to write a musical about a Black gay musical theater writer. Unsparingly introspective and sexually straightforward, it was staged Off Broadway in 2019 at Playwrights Horizons in a collaboration with Page 73 Productions. The New York Times critic Ben Brantley called it “jubilantly anguished” and said it featured “an assortment of the kind of infectious, richly harmonic melodies that would have your grandparents leaving the theater humming. That is, if they hadn’t walked out before.”The musical went on to win the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in drama, and was described by the Pulitzers as “a meditation on universal human fears and insecurities.”Since November, “A Strange Loop” has been running at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington, where it received a rave review from The Washington Post. The critic Peter Marks called it “marvelously inventive” and “exhilarating.”Jackson said he was delighted to see the musical find a home on Broadway. “I think it’s significant because this show is one that made its way out of nowhere, and stuck to its guns and to itself,” he said. “That doesn’t happen often with new musicals.”And does he believe the musical can succeed in a Broadway dominated by jukebox musicals and adaptations of movies? “The challenge I laid out for myself is that ‘A Strange Loop’ is a big, Black and queer-ass American Broadway show,” he said. “I believe we can entice audiences from all over to come take part.”The musical is directed by Stephen Brackett and choreographed by Raja Feather Kelly; the Broadway cast has not yet been announced. The Broadway run will be produced by Barbara Whitman. More

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      in Theater

      Where Do Theater Artists Go to Ask Questions? Poughkeepsie.

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      New York Stage and Film provides an unlikely haven for inquiring writers of new plays and musicals.POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — For Michael R. Jackson, the question was quite specific. What kind of underscoring do you write for a melodramatic yet serious musical inspired by soap operas, Lifetime movies and “Law and Order: SVU”?Jackson has been developing his musical, “White Girl in Danger,” since 2017, through so many workshops and readings that he can barely list them all. He had already nailed down the plot, about a Black performer on a surreal soap who schemes, from the “blackground,” to outshine the white stars and get a story of her own.Now he needed to figure out something smaller but crucial: how to apply the organ stings, ominous monotones and other instrumental plot thickeners that would underline the satire and keep the audience on track.That was the reason he spent two weeks recently on the stately campus of Marist College here, working in free rehearsal halls and sleeping in an undergraduate dorm bed. He was a guest of New York Stage and Film, the quietly influential incubator of new plays and musicals (and screenplays and television scripts) offering year-round workshops and residencies. And though its theater season each summer is a must-see in the industry, even that is more inward facing than outward, with only a few performances of each show and no reviews allowed.Call it a concierge service for works in progress.“These days have been nothing short of stupendous and invaluable,” Jackson told me last week as “White Girl” was preparing for its debut under an open-sided tent along the Hudson River. He was not referring to the festival’s coffers; the Marist season was pay-what-you-can. Rather, like all the artists I spoke to, he was excited by what he’d learned in rehearsal, and by what he expected to learn from the audience that weekend as it laughed, gasped, cheered or fell silent.“What question are you asking that you can’t ask anywhere else?” said Chris Burney, Stage and Film’s artistic director, discussing what he sees as the organization’s mission. “What’s your big dream project? That’s why we are here, outside the bounds of the commercial theater.”This year, most of New York Stage and Film’s productions took place in a tent on the banks of the Hudson.Lauren Lancaster for The New York TimesOutside its bounds, perhaps, but not a stranger to it. Many shows developed at Stage and Film in its 37 seasons have had long and profitable afterlives. The best known is “Hamilton,” which appeared as “The Hamilton Mixtape” in 2013, but Poughkeepsie has also been a stop in the journey of “The Wolves,” by Sarah DeLappe, “The Humans,” by Stephen Karam and “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music,” by Taylor Mac.Those were big works, and so is “White Girl”: Stage and Film hosted Jackson and a company of 22, while providing advice, support, space and two paid apprentices. Jackson, who won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for his musical “A Strange Loop,” now wending its way toward Broadway, is a big name, too, and “White Girl” is already on track for a New York production, after several workshops over the last two years at the Vineyard Theater.But the season’s smaller shows, by artists not yet as well known, got much the same treatment as they set out to answer their own idiosyncratic questions. Though I didn’t get to see “South,” by Florencia Iriondo, who was turning her five-character musical into a solo show so it could be performed more easily in a pandemic environment, I saw the other four productions on offer, three in the tent and one online, with a huge star, Billy Porter, attached.At whatever stage in their evolution, from nowhere near finished to almost complete, the shows received the same careful, sheltered airing. Audiences included some theater professionals but they did not bring with them the hothouse feeling that so often and unhelpfully hangs over developmental work in New York City.Well, the tent was hot, especially at matinees. (Admission included a precautionary temperature check as well as a jaunty paper fan.) And the atmosphere was more informal than in previous seasons, which were held at theaters on the campus of Vassar College nearby.The switch was not an aesthetic choice, though. Two weeks before Burney was to announce his first season as artistic director, in March 2020, the pandemic hit. Vassar shut down in the middle of spring break, meaning that Stage and Film, even if it were functioning by summer, could not do so there; the dorms that usually housed artists were filled with the students’ abandoned belongings.Nygel D. Robinson and Brian Quijada in “Mexodus.”Buck LewisThe Vassar programs were canceled, but some of this season’s most promising productions emerged from the disaster. One was “Mexodus,” by Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson, which began when Quijada was “scrolling good old Facebook many years ago,” he told me, and came upon a bit of history he’d never learned, about thousands of Black people who had escaped slavery not by the familiar northern route but by a southern one, leading to Mexico.“My parents” — who are from El Salvador — “both crossed in the ’70s,” Quijada said, meaning from Mexico to the United States. “I wanted to explore this reverse border story but didn’t know how I would do it alone.”He didn’t have to; Robinson, whom he met at a conference, was on board the minute Quijada shared the idea; they began riffing on ideas the next day, including one that became the first song.“It could have just been a little passion project,” Robinson says, “if Stage and Film hadn’t put some fire under it.”The fire came in the form of an offer, said Quijada, who had worked with the institution before: “They said, ‘Is there anything you want to do? We have funds.’”This is not the kind of question artists, no matter how seasoned, usually hear from producers. When Quijada and Robinson picked their jaws up off the floor, they shared their idea, which as yet had no plot or structure.Stage and Film loved it anyway, suggesting that the two write a song each month from their quarantines in different cities as they built the story into a virtual concept album. Then, when live theater returned, Burney promised to bring them to Poughkeepsie to work on it in person. “They even sent me a new bow for my bass,” Robinson said.By the time the two men arrived here in July, the score was in good shape to tell the story they’d settled on, about an enslaved Black man (played by Robinson) who crosses the Rio Grande into Mexico after murdering a white man who has raped his sister. He nearly dies en route but is nursed back to health by a Mexican farmer (Quijada) with a troubled past of his own.The specific question the authors needed to answer was technical: How could they perform the music they had created electronically during the pandemic, including frequent looping, in a live environment?When I saw “Mexodus,” they were still sorting out that complicated choreography, but it never got in the way of the story, or of the feedback the artists were receiving from the audience.“Interstate,” a pop-rock musical, took nine years of work.Buck LewisThe creators of “Interstate,” a more traditional pop-rock musical — if one about nontraditional characters — wanted to address a problem that was itself more traditional: How could their second act best develop the themes of the first? After nine years of work, the setup, about a lesbian and a transgender man who tour as a duo called Queer Malady, was working just fine. But when a developmental production in Minneapolis was shut down by the pandemic, Melissa Li and Kit Yan felt that the rest of their show, focusing on the duo’s conflicts and a desperate fan, still needed work. Stage and Film stepped in.The presentation I saw thus skipped the first hour, starting just two songs shy of what would normally be the intermission. If that foreshortening meant meeting the characters in mid-arc, it allowed the audience to feel it was meeting the show in mid-arc, too; like the other productions at Stage and Film, it was revealing itself before being set in stone.That’s a thrill pretty much unique to this model of development. Still, a static production of new work can be thrilling too. That was the case with Porter’s show, “Sanctuary,” for which he is writing the book, about a pop diva with big issues, and Kurt Carr is writing the gospel score.The video that streamed for five days recently didn’t include any dialogue; Porter says that his work with Stage and Film is aimed at figuring out the tone of the book scenes in the context of such overwhelming music. (The soloists included Deborah Cox and Ledisi; Broadway Inspirational Voices was the luxury chorus.) If it was not quite stage and not quite film, “Sanctuary” is nevertheless the kind of thing Stage and Film does best: letting you experience new work before all its questions are answered. More