The Toronto theatre scene of the 1990s may have played a small role in changing the life of Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Michael R. Jackson.
“Two of the first big shows I ever saw were ‘Show Boat’ and ‘The Phantom of the Opera,’” said the Detroit-born Jackson, on a Zoom call from his home in New York City.
“I was 13 years old, and my mother, grandmother and I took the train from Detroit to Toronto and saw the pre-Broadway ‘Show Boat’ and the long-running musical ‘The Phantom of the Opera.’ ‘Show Boat’ especially showed me how a musical could explore social issues.”
This month, after flying to Detroit, Jackson and his parents are going to take that same train route. This time, however, they’ll be catching the Canadian premiere of Jackson’s own “A Strange Loop,” his acclaimed 2019 musical that is proving just as groundbreaking in exploring social issues as the Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II classic.
Except “Show Boat” doesn’t feature songs about Grindr hookups, “inner white girls” and the ubiquitousness of Tyler Perry.
Jackson’s musical is inspired by his experiences as a plus-sized queer Black man looking for love, dealing with feelings of self-doubt and trying to write a musical, all while working as an usher at “The Lion King,” a job Jackson himself held for four years.
Ironically, the composer never set out to write a musical. The show’s genesis was a monologue Jackson wrote two decades ago after he had studied playwriting at New York University.
“I was trying to make sense of my world at that time as a young Black gay man living in the middle of nowhere in Jamaica, Queens, not sure how I was going to make a living,” he said. “So I started writing this thinly veiled autobiographical monologue called ‘Why I Can’t Get Work.’”
Soon after, while in graduate school to study book- and lyric-writing, he took a class in which writers were challenged to create music and composers encouraged to write lyrics. That got his creative juices flowing and, over the next few years, he worked on songs in private and eventually workshopped the material with various not-for-profit organizations.
When the off-Broadway company Playwrights Horizons asked to do a reading of the show, it happened on the same night that Donald Trump was elected U.S. president for the first time.
“I think the audience was feeling particularly down that day and you could feel them uplifted by this show,” said Jackson. Eventually, Playwrights Horizons mounted the show and, after that, producers bankrolled a Broadway run, which picked up two Tony Awards, including one for best musical.
Because of the personal nature of the material, and the fact that it was initially developed far from the commercial concerns of Broadway, “A Strange Loop” includes frank and uncensored language about race and sexuality.
On the show’s website — it’s a co-production between Soulpepper, the Musical Stage Company, Crow’s Theatre and TO Live — is the longest content warning I’ve ever seen.
“I worked on the show for so long in total obscurity that by the time it was being considered for production, it would have been against the whole point of the show to change all that,” said Jackson. “The show is what it is, it features the language of the streets, so you can take it or leave it.”
For outgoing Musical Stage Company artistic director Ray Hogg, who saw that Broadway production and is directing this staging, Jackson’s distinctive voice and POV is what makes the show so special.
“The show is really about a young man trying to figure out who he is and whether it’s OK to be himself,” said Hogg, in a separate interview.
“It happens to be told through a lens that is different from the one we’re used to seeing in most shows. We’ve spent decades upholding and celebrating one voice. What’s remarkable about this work is Michael’s perspective. It’s so simple and yet so revolutionary.”
The cast is headed by the remarkable young actor Malachi McCaskill, who played the main character of Usher on the West Coast leg of the Broadway tour. Also in the cast as Usher’s various “Thoughts” are a who’s who of Canadian talent, including Marcus Nance, David Lopez, Amaka Umeh and Matt Nethersole.
“We’ve all been talking as a company about how we really want the audience to lean in and care about Usher,” said Hogg. “Some of the actors have said that they’re all trying to grapple with what Usher is dealing with. You can be older than 25, 35 or 45 and still wonder if it’s OK to be yourself. That transcends language.”
As for Jackson, he can’t wait to see his breakthrough show in a new production, performed by actors who — apart from McCaskill — are new to him.
“I feel the way I did before we opened in London, England,” he said. “I didn’t know how they were going to respond to things. They loved the show but had no idea who Tyler Perry was, which made me laugh. Is Tyler Perry a bigger deal in Canada? I’m looking forward to finding out.”
“A Strange Loop” runs until June 1 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts’ Baillie Theatre, 50 Tank House Lane. Visit soulpepper.ca or call 416-866-8666 for tickets and information.
