A Strange Loop on Broadway Tickets
About A Strange Loop on Broadway
Three years after the world premiere of A Strange Loop off Broadway, the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical circled to New York for its Broadway debut, and is the 2022 Tony Award winner for Best Musical. Get A Strange Loop tickets on TodayTix now.
See the "big, black, queer-ass American musical" that's received near-universal praise for its heart, honesty, and humor. A Strange Loop has won Best Musical six times: at the Drama Desk Awards, Drama League Awards, Outer Critics Circle Awards, New York Drama Critics’ Award, Off-Broadway Alliance Award, and, most recently, the Tony Awards. The show made history at the Pulitzer Prizes as the first musical by a Black writer to receive the award, the 10th musical ever to do so, and the first musical to do so before announcing a Broadway run. A five-star New York Theatre Guide review called the show "revolutionary" and "a near-perfect marriage of art and activism," and The Washington Post called it "explosively imaginative. Dazzlingly one-of-a-kind. Broadway’s best new musical." Dozens of celebrities — including Michelle Obama, Mindy Kaling, RuPaul, Steven Spielberg, Samuel L. Jackson, Rachel Bloom, and Whoopi Goldberg — have seen and loved it. So come see what everyone's talking about at A Strange Loop, one of the few fully original musicals (not based on a movie, existing pop music, or a celebrity's career) currently on Broadway.
A Strange Loop is a musical inspired by the life of its creator, Michael R. Jackson, a Black, gay man who once worked as an usher at The Lion King on Broadway. Though the show isn't strictly autobiographical, there are certainly parallels. Usher, the protagonist of A Strange Loop, is a Black, 20something gay man who hates his day job as a Broadway usher. In his spare time, he's writing an original musical... about a Black, gay man who hates his day job and wants to make it as a writer. Such is the "strange loop" that Usher finds himself in, like an infinity mirror for his career.
Besides needing to make ends meet, Usher faces a host of other challenges to his success as a writer: namely, his rather unforgiving thoughts that make him question his appearance, his talent, and his self-worth at every turn, on endless loop. The entirety of A Strange Loop is set inside Usher's mind, where his candid thoughts are personified as an all-Black, all-queer ensemble. A Strange Loop sees Usher fighting his inner demons so he doesn't torpedo his own success. (And, occasionally, taking their side, such as when he's offered a writing gig that his religious, homophobic parents love, but he absolutely hates.)
Though A Strange Loop is based on the experiences of one person, it's a universally relatable story to anyone who's ever pursued a dream, struggled with self-doubt, or learned to love themselves, even when the world doesn't always love them back. The musical is filled with poignant moments, but it's an uplifting and thoroughly funny story that celebrates individuality and success, and lifts up Black, queer voices.
Tickets to A Strange Loop in New York are available now. Don't go in circles looking for them — get A Strange Loop tickets on TodayTix.
Run time
100 minutes with no intermission
Start date
14th April, 2022
End date
15th January, 2023
Categories
Venue
Age
Children under 4 are not permitted in the theatre.
A Strange Loop on Broadway cast and creative team
By: Book, Music & Lyrics by Michael R. Jackson
Director: Stephen Brackett
Choreography: Raja Feather Kelly
Cast includes: Jaquel Spivey (as Usher), L Morgan Lee (as Thought 1), James Jackson, Jr. (as Thought 2), John-Michael Lyles (as Thought 3), John-Andrew Morrison (as Thought 4), Jason Veasey (as Thought 5), Antwayn Hopper (as Thought 6)
Lighting: Jen Schriever
Sound: Drew Levy
Design: Arnulfo Maldonado
Costume: Montana Levi Blanco
Other info: Orchestrations by Charlie A. Rosen, music direction by Rona Siddiqui
Venue
Accessibility
Accommodations for patrons who are blind, deaf, partially sighted, and/or have hearing loss; partial wheelchair access, handrail access
More information about A Strange Loop on Broadway
The explosive success of A Strange Loop is decades in the making. Michael R. Jackson spent 20 years working on the A Strange Loop musical, which began as a post-college monologue and gradually changed as Jackson did, and new collaborators came on. His first inspirations, beyond his own life, were the artists Liz Phair, Tori Amos, and Joni Mitchell, whose music (along with R&B, Motown, and Broadway influences) inspired the sound of the show. It was director Stephen Brackett who had the idea to make the Thoughts an all-Black and all-queer group, and each cast member's personality has influenced their character — many of the Thoughts have been with the show for years.
Now, the A Strange Loop Broadway production is the third major run of the show in just three years, and all three were met with rave reviews for successfully blending a heartfelt emotional journey with uproarious, pop-culture-infused humor. In 2019, the musical made its world premiere at Playwrights Horizons off Broadway and earned nearly 20 awards. A Strange Loop then opened at Washington, D.C.'s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in fall 2021 for its pre-Broadway tryout.
In 2022, once again directed by Stephen Brackett and choreographed by Raja Feather Kelly, and with the whole D.C. cast in tow, A Strange Loop made its long-awaited Broadway bow at the Lyceum Theatre. It was the most Tony-nominated show of the season with 11 nods, winning its sixth Best Musical prize and Best Book of a Musical.
Lots of celebrities have seen and loved A Strange Loop on Broadway, too, including Anna Wintour, Bette Midler, Cynthia Nixon, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Jesse Williams, Pete Buttigieg, Kandi Burruss, Frankie Grande, Uzo Aduba, Ilana Glazer, Rachel Bloom, Rita Moreno, and Vanessa Williams — just to name a few!
What to Watch For
- The musical shares a title with the Liz Phair song "Strange Loop." Phair's 1993 album Exile in Guyville also lends its name to a Strange Loop tune, "Exile in Gayville."
- A strange loop is also a scientific phenomenon coined by the scholar Douglas Hofstadter. According to Hofstadter, a "strange loop" happens in hierarchical systems: A person can move up or down the ranks of power and status, but they always find themselves back where they began.
- Among the many similarities between Michael R. Jackson and his A Strange Loop protagonist, Usher, is that both share a name with a famous singer. (Jackson sometimes goes by "the living Michael Jackson" on social media to differentiate himself from the King of Pop — who also has a current Broadway musical dedicated to him!)
- Some Black artistic icons make cameos in A Strange Loop as characters, like James Baldwin and Whitney Houston. Jackson has also written in references to other famous musicals, including The Color Purple, The Lion King, and Stephen Sondheim's Company (which is also currently being revived on Broadway). Can you spot them?
- When A Strange Loop won Best Musical, it made Jennifer Hudson, one of the show's producers, only the 17th person to EGOT, or earn an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award.
- Fans of the recent tick, tick... BOOM! film might see some similarities between that story, of a young Jonathan Larson trying to write a hit musical, and Usher's journey as a writer in A Strange Loop. Coincidentally, Jackson once received the Jonathan Larson Grant in support of his own work!
Tickets
Unfortunately, tickets for this event are no longer available.
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