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.