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A Strange Loop
A Strange Loop
A Strange Loop
Ebook111 pages1 hour

A Strange Loop

By Michael R. Jackson

4.5/5

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About this ebook

Winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

“To watch this show is to enter, by some urgent, bawdy magic, an ecstatic and infinitely more colorful version of the famous surreal lithograph by M. C. Escher: the hand that lifts from the page, becoming almost real, then draws another hand, which returns the favor. Which came first? A Strange Loop is complex, teasing, thrilling.” —Vinson Cunningham, New Yorker

Usher is a Black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical: a piece about a Black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical. This blistering musical follows a young artist at war with a host of demons—not least of which are the punishing thoughts in his own head—in an attempt to understand his own strange loop.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherTheatre Communications Group
Release dateJan 19, 2021
ISBN9781559369947
A Strange Loop
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    Book preview

    A Strange Loop - Michael R. Jackson

    INTERMISSION SONG (INTRO]

    ALL THOUGHTS:

    USHER-USHER! USHER! USHER!

    USHER-USHER! USHER! USHER!

    USHER-USHER! USHER! USHER!

    USHER-USHER! USHER! USHER! …

    (Usher turns around, chiming.)

    USHER: Ladies and gentlemen, please return to your seats; the second act is about to begin! Ladies and gentlemen, please return to your seats; the second act is about to begin! There will be performers running down the aisles and wearing pantaloons and gaudy flowing robes that I think are meant to indicate the wholesome beauty of Mother Africa! There will be swinging birds on fishing poles and a Black Ken doll with a crossover dialect in a lion costume! What else? Oh, yes! In the background, there will be a young overweight-to-obese homosexual and/or gay and/or queer, cisgender male, able-bodied university-and-graduate-school-educated, musical-theater-writing, Disney-ushering, broke-ass middle-class far-Left-leaning Black-identified-and-classified American descendant of slaves full of self-conscious femme energy and who thinks he’s probably a vers bottom but not totally certain of that, obsessing over the latest draft of his self-referential musical A Strange Loop! And surrounded by his extremely obnoxious Thoughts!

    [OPENING] INTERMISSION SONG

    THOUGHT 1:

    HOW MANY MINUTES ’TIL THE

    END OF INTERMISSION?

    THOUGHT 2:

    IS THAT HOW THE SHOW SHOULD OPEN?

    THOUGHT 1:

    SHOULD THERE EVEN BE A SHOW?

    THOUGHT 2:

    NO, IT SHOULD START WITH WHAT HE’S THINKING

    THOUGHT 1:

    WHICH IS JUST A CURSOR BLINKING

    THOUGHTS 1 AND 2:

    ’CAUSE OF ALL OF THE DIRECTIONS

    THAT THE NARRATIVE COULD GO!

    THOUGHTS 5 AND 6:

    HOW MANY MINUTES ’TIL THE

    END OF INTERMISSION?

    NO ONE CARES ABOUT A WRITER WHO IS

    STRUGGLING TO WRITE

    THOUGHT 4:

    THEY’LL SAY IT’S WAY TOO REPETITIOUS

    THOUGHT 3:

    AND SO OVERLY AMBITIOUS

    THOUGHTS 5 AND 6:

    WHICH OF COURSE MAKES THEM SUSPICIOUS

    THOUGHTS 3 AND 6:

    THAT YOU THINK YOU’RE FUCKING WHITE!

    THOUGHTS 1 AND 2:

    BLACKNESS, QUEERNESS FIGHTING BACK TO FILL THIS CIS-HET-ALL-WHITE SPACE WITH A—

    THOUGHTS 3 AND 4:

    PORTRAIT OF A PORTRAIT OF A PORTRAIT OF A BLACK QUEER FACE

    THOUGHTS 1–4:

    AND A CHOIR FULL OF BLACK QUEER VOICES, TREBLE CLEF

    THOUGHTS 5 AND

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