White Girl in Danger (Off-Broadway) (2023)

I've never had this experience before but we got free tickets from Culture Pass and got "General Admission" tickets". What that meant was that we got whatever empty seats were left right before curtain. Somehow there are empty seats, at what I think is an otherwise sold out performance. But here's the tricky part, if the ticketholder with your seat shows up, then they can kick you out at intermission, at which point you'll get "refunded". But that means this person who showed up late has to wait an hour and a half for intermission--who's going to wait that long? Anyways, we're lucky we got seats in the front row and got to stay the whole show. 

Michael R Jackson's new musical is a lot. It's a satire on classic white people soap operas. It's imaginatively about a "blackground" character trying to make it in an "all-white" show--Jackson sticks with the meta concept. It was over 3 hours. The first act, a full hour and 40 minutes. And the 15 minute intermission also has content playing on the projector. And there's content playing before curtain. They film these hilarious cheesy, bad green screen, commercials. It felt like watching Atlanta spoof public access TV. He also kind of leans into the Tyler Perry-esque mannerisms that he berates in A Strange Loop (Atlanta does it too). But it's really long. Especially compared to the tight A Strange Loop. They probably need to cut a full half hour at least. It's funny but it kind of rambles. The songs are pretty hit or miss--the highlight is the opening title song. A few of them kind of lack melody. They're not really Sondheim-esque but y'know they also don't have a hummable tune. It's also very profane. A Strange Loop was too, but I feel like this was even more extreme. The gay sex scene in this one is a lesbian sex scene and there are multiple sex toy props. Definitely not family friendly. 

Tarra Conner Jones steals the show as Nell. This is her Off Broadway debut. She literally has a showstopper. There was a standing ovation for her in the middle of the show for her big number. Those are always cool moments.

A Strange Loop (Broadway) (2022)

Michael R Jackson's long-gestating passion project is certainly the blackest, queerest show to ever hit a Broadway stage. Big, black and queer-ass American Broadway show is actually an excellent descriptor for A Strange Loop. Emphasis on the "American", claiming its place in the canon of American musicals, telling a uniquely American story. While the traditional gatekeepers may have kept this from ever seeing a stage, Broadway is all the better for it. It's nothing like the usual American stories we see on stage. And it's not really for your typical Midwestern white tourist family Broadway audience. It is wildly profane, if not visually graphic. It's not family-friendly, and yet I also feel like the high school generation will appreciate it more than the typical retiree theatergoer. 

I will say that the sound mixing in the Lyceum Theater was terrible.  I missed a lot of Jackson's clever lyrics in the catchy music. Maybe the actors aren't mic-ed right, or the band was too loud or our seats were too high or what but the lyrics didn't come through clearly and it's a shame because they're really funny. The Lyceum balcony is very steep. When I walked in to the theater, the curtain was down with the title of the show in small type-writer font, making me a little worried. But when the curtain raised, the actors stood front and center, and they actually weren't that far away; the fonts were a trick of the eye. The action also largely stays at the front of the stage, making most every seat in the house full view. It's a mostly minimalist set, save for one extravagant set piece at the end. 

The tight seven-person cast is all excellent. The young Jaquel Spivey is fresh out of college in his Broadway debut. He is on stage for most of the 110 minute runtime, sometimes with his back to the audience (interesting choice). His six Thoughts all play double duty. All six of them play multiple characters, both men and women, characters of varying personas. They're all fabulously distinct. The Thought that plays Usher's mother especially stands out, John-Andrew Morrison.

Clearly inspired by Company, the show lacks a plot. It balances comedy and emotion and feels so real and personal. It's super meta. And I'll admit that it was a little too clever for me. Though Usher explains the title multiple times, the title still went over my head. It's brilliant, but I need some help with the analysis. We'll have to revisit this down the road.