Broadway wasn’t on Detroit native Michael R. Jackson’s mind as he spent 18 years toiling on a musical that emotionally mirrored his own life about a young Black man named after a famous pop star. He was just determined to finish it.
Stopping and starting, writing and rewriting, Jackson, 41, wasn’t sure “A Strange Loop” would even make it off-Broadway. But he kept working.
“Trying to tell this story took all of my focus,” said Jackson, a 1999 graduate of Cass Technical High School who went on to attend New York University.
But “A Strange Loop,” for which Jackson wrote the book, music and lyrics, did finally make it to Broadway. And audiences and critics have been giving it rave reviews since it opened in late April at New York’s Lyceum Theatre. It’s been nominated for 11 Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Original Score, more than other any other production this season. The Tony Awards are at 8 p.m. Sunday on CBS.
The accolades are “an unexpected dream come true,” says Jackson, who also won a Pulitzer in 2020 for “A Strange Loop.” He credits some of his teachers and mentors in Detroit for pushing him to be “truthful” in his writing and to “dare to be dangerous” with his words.
“I thought maybe at the most I could get an off-Broadway run somewhere,” Jackson said during a Zoom interview last month. “So when that happened, it could’ve been the end-all, be-all. I would’ve been happy with just that. It wasn’t until my producer asked me if I wanted to try to grab the brass ring of Broadway and I said I did.”
Jackson, who has been writing since he was a teenager and seriously considered writing for soap operas at one point, said “A Strange Loop” took so long to finish partly because for a long time he didn’t understand the protagonist’s problem.
“I was drawing from my own personal experience to tell the story, but in my own life I hadn’t quite figured out the problem either,” said Jackson, referring to his own journey of self-acceptance. “And then I figured out that the problem was that there was no problem.”
The musical, which Jackson says doesn’t completely mirror his own life but is “emotionally autobiographical,” follows a young, gay Black man also named after a famous pop star, Usher, who is working as an usher on Broadway while writing a musical about a young, gay Black man. Jackson also worked as an usher on Broadway for roughly five years while working on “A Strange Loop.”
“There are so many loops within loops, within loops, in the show,” he said.
Throughout the musical, which the New York Times has called “dazzling,” Usher’s “thoughts” — good and bad, self-loathing and supportive — are embodied on stage through a group of actors and actresses (one thought is called “My Daily Self-Loathing,” and another is “Supervisor of Your Sexual Ambivalence”). The name of the musical, meanwhile, is taken from a 1995 Liz Phair song, “Strange Loop.”
Jackson believes one reason the show has resonated so much with audiences is that “it’s a very human story.”
“For as specific a story as it is about a young, Black, gay man, I think he’s talking about life,” he said. “Real life. And I think that’s translating across many different audiences in many different ways. … It’s something new that you haven’t seen on Broadway before. And the piece meets people wherever they are. And I think people are responding to that.”
Jackson’s mentors, who include his former creative writing teacher at Cass Tech, Deborah Thompson, and Peter Markus, an author and senior writer at InsideOut Literary Arts, a nonprofit that works with students in Detroit and other districts on writing, say even from a young age they saw an authentic voice in Jackson’s writing.
Thompson, who remembers Jackson as curious and an independent thinker who didn’t “necessarily go with the crowd,” recalls Jackson asking her one day as a teen if she thought he could make it as writer. She didn’t hesitate.
“I said yes because he was so talented. So talented,” remembers Thompson, who spent more than 20 years with the Detroit Public Schools Community District and retired from teaching in 2010. “You can always see the kids who see the world a bit differently, have a different take on things and have that exceptional creativity. And he’s an extremely honest person.”
Thompson, who has kept in touch with Jackson, has now seen “A Strange Loop” three times. She saw it again, this time on Broadway, last week.
“It’s so completely original,” she said. “It deals with such complex issues in a tender and humorous and intelligent way.”
The living Michael Jackson
Jackson grew up on Detroit’s west side with his father, Henry, a police officer who later worked for American Axle, and his mom, Mary, who worked in finance. He said his parents’ decision to name him Michael was never a nod to the famous pop star, but because they wanted a more traditional name at a time when Afrocentric ones were very popular.
The moniker wasn’t easy to have in the ’90s during the superstar’s legal struggles. He now uses “the Living Michael Jackson” as his social media handle, a tongue-in-cheek nod to his name.
As a kid, Jackson, who also played piano, was in a children’s theater group called Paperback Productions, but then decided he wanted to write. He started with poems and short stories.
It was through InsideOut Literary Arts, the nonprofit that works with students on writing, that Jackson began exploring his voice as a writer. He met Markus, a Trenton-based author and senior writer with InsideOut, who became a mentor.
Markus said even in high school, Jackson had a flair for language and “over-the-top drama.” Jackson’s work was published in four InsideOut anthologies by Cass Tech students in the ’90s.
“He was unapologetic,” said Markus about Jackson’s writing. “… I think that’s something early on I preached — to really tell your authentic truth. You can’t be looking over your shoulder.”
Not that that’s been easy. A big soap opera fan — Jackson says he grew up watching “Days of Our Lives” from the age of 5 on — he seriously considered becoming a soap opera writer. As a teen, he discovered what he calls “White girl music” after a cousin introduced himself to confessional singer-songwriter Tori Amos. Listening to two of Amos’s biggest albums, “Under the Pink” and “Little Earthquakes,” they struck a chord with him.
“I was in bed, I put in my headphones and ‘Pretty Good Year’ came on, and I was like, ‘Oh, who is this?’ I didn’t even know I felt like that,” remembers Jackson who just met Amos after a concert this spring. “Her music opened up secret feelings and made it OK to feel secret feelings, and to explore what those secret feelings are.”
Both Amos and Phair have been influential in Jackson’s work. In fact, he loved Phair’s song, “Strange Loop,” not realizing it was connected to the work of cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter. Hofstadter’s work explored the ideas of self-reference and how we define ourselves and the many “different reference points that make up who you are,” said Jackson.
“In the musical, Usher deals with a lot of self-hatred,” Jackson said. “And self-hatred, or self-loathing, is a strange loop because it just keeps reproducing itself over and over again until it doesn’t. And you have a shift in perspective. When you have that shift in perspective, it turns into something else. Self-love also is a strange loop.”
Self-love
Finding self-love — Jackson said his 20s to his mid-30s were a real “emotional rollercoaster” — has been a journey for Jackson himself. But now much more comfortable in his own skin, especially after turning 40, he credits Amos and his mentors who encouraged and inspired him to face fears, be “dangerous” and “gave me permission to be truthful in my writing.”
“I’m grateful,” he said.
His family, meanwhile, has been very supportive of Jackson’s writing and “A Strange Loop.” His mom and dad will be with him at the Tony Awards. And while he couldn’t wait to leave Detroit while he was growing up, age and time have given him new perspective.
“Being from Detroit helped me stay grounded,” said Jackson, who is now working on a new musical called “White Girl in Danger.” “I come from a community of real people. Living in New York you can sometimes feel like you’re not around real people. I came from good stock — my family and the people who raised me. There’s such a vibrant art scene in the Detroit area that I was able to come up in and take that with me.”
His fans and mentors, meanwhile, will be cheering him on every step of the way.
“I can’t wait to see the new truths that he’s bound to keep telling in years to come,” Markus said. “… He’s got a lot of people listening and he’s speaking for a lot of people.”
mfeighan@detroitnews.com
‘A Strange Loop’ and the Tony Awards
Michael R. Jackson’s ‘A Strange Loop’ is up for 11 awards at the 75th Annual Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Original Score, and Best Book of a Musical. The awards will be broadcast at 8 p.m. June 12 on CBS.
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