A Strange Loop

By Michael R. Jackson

Winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

“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.” —Vinson Cunningham, New Yorker

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. This blistering 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Release date: Jan 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781559369947

Book preview

INTERMISSION SONG (INTRO]

ALL THOUGHTS:

USHER-USHER! USHER! USHER!

USHER-USHER! USHER! USHER!

USHER-USHER! USHER! USHER!

USHER-USHER! USHER! USHER! …

(Usher turns around, chiming.)

USHER: Ladies and gentlemen, please return to your seats; the second act is about to begin! Ladies and gentlemen, please return to your seats; the second act is about to begin! There will be performers running down the aisles and wearing pantaloons and gaudy flowing robes that I think are meant to indicate the wholesome beauty of Mother Africa! There will be swinging birds on fishing poles and a Black Ken doll with a crossover dialect in a lion costume! What else? Oh, yes! In the background, there will be a young overweight-to-obese homosexual and/or gay and/or queer, cisgender male, able-bodied university-and-graduate-school-educated, musical-theater-writing, Disney-ushering, broke-ass middle-class far-Left-leaning Black-identified-and-classified American descendant of slaves full of self-conscious femme energy and who thinks he’s probably a vers bottom but not totally certain of that, obsessing over the latest draft of his self-referential musical A Strange Loop! And surrounded by his extremely obnoxious Thoughts!

[OPENING] INTERMISSION SONG

THOUGHT 1:

HOW MANY MINUTES ’TIL THE

END OF INTERMISSION?

THOUGHT 2:

IS THAT HOW THE SHOW SHOULD OPEN?

THOUGHT 1:

SHOULD THERE EVEN BE A SHOW?

THOUGHT 2:

NO, IT SHOULD START WITH WHAT HE’S THINKING

THOUGHT 1:

WHICH IS JUST A CURSOR BLINKING

THOUGHTS 1 AND 2:

’CAUSE OF ALL OF THE DIRECTIONS

THAT THE NARRATIVE COULD GO!

THOUGHTS 5 AND 6:

HOW MANY MINUTES ’TIL THE

END OF INTERMISSION?

NO ONE CARES ABOUT A WRITER WHO IS

STRUGGLING TO WRITE

THOUGHT 4:

THEY’LL SAY IT’S WAY TOO REPETITIOUS

THOUGHT 3:

AND SO OVERLY AMBITIOUS

THOUGHTS 5 AND 6:

WHICH OF COURSE MAKES THEM SUSPICIOUS

THOUGHTS 3 AND 6:

THAT YOU THINK YOU’RE FUCKING WHITE!

THOUGHTS 1 AND 2:

BLACKNESS, QUEERNESS FIGHTING BACK TO FILL THIS CIS-HET-ALL-WHITE SPACE WITH A—

THOUGHTS 3 AND 4:

PORTRAIT OF A PORTRAIT OF A PORTRAIT OF A BLACK QUEER FACE

THOUGHTS 1–4:

AND A CHOIR FULL OF BLACK QUEER VOICES, TREBLE CLEF

THOUGHTS 5 AND

Reviews for A Strange Loop

[muddyboy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I would love to see this musical play staged. How would they do it? Essentially there is one character a small, pudgy, gay, black man who is an usher at a Disney theater and is writing a play in his hours off. The other "characters" are six different thought voices in the usher's head. The usher has been brought up in a strict religious home and his career and homosexuality are a struggle especially with his mother who wants him to find a girl and write Tyler Perry type plays which he doesn't. His are raw. I get the acclaim but this play will be shocking to many.