'A Strange Loop' to open on Broadway in spring 2022

The Pulitzer Prize-winning musical will play the Lyceum Theatre.

The precious little dream of an A Strange Loop Broadway transfer is coming true. Michael R. Jackson's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical is set to play the Lyceum Theatre in spring 2022, Director Stephen Brackett and choreographer Raja Feather Kelly, who are currently helming the show's pre-Broadway engagement at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., will also direct and choreograph the Broadway production.

A Strange Loop centers on a Black, queer writer named Usher, whose latest gig as a writer is to ghostwrite a new Tyler Perry play, which he's reluctant to do. His day job is working as an actual usher for The Lion King on Broadway. As he navigates the white, heteronormative world around him through his various jobs and otherwise, a six-person ensemble voices his inner thoughts. The musical takes its name from Douglas Hofstadter's concept of the same name, in which a person moves up or down in a hierarchical system and always finds themselves back where they started.

Besides winning the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, A Strange Loop won five Drama Desk Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards, six Outer Critics Circle honors, two Obie awards, one Off-Broadway Alliance Award, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical for its 2019 world premiere production at Playwrights Horizons. The New York Theatre Guide review reads, "While A Strange Loop is clever and funny, it is also very raw and not for the faint of heart. Jackson pulls no punches in his language or his exploration of Usher's experiences. He challenges the audience not to flinch in accepting Usher's reality."

Performance dates and casting for the Broadway production are to be announced. Besides Brackett and Kelly, the A Strange Loop creative team includes set designer Arnulfo Maldonado, costume designer Montana Levi Blanco, lighting designer Jen Schreiver, sound designer Drew Levy, music director Rona Siddiqui, and orchestrator Charlie Rosen.

The new Broadway production of Macbeth starring Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga was originally scheduled to play the Lyceum this spring, but that show has moved to the Longacre Theatre.

Check back for information on A Strange Loop tickets on New York Theatre Guide.

^{Photo credit: Marc J. Franklin}