‘A Strange Loop’ Broadway Darling Michael R. Jackson Feels Pride — For Himself
Michael R. Jackson has a lot to be proud of. His musical “A Strange Loop” leads the Broadway awards-season race with 11 Tony nominations and stands poised to net the top musical trophy plus several others for him and his collaborators.
The show has become a New York media darling; ticket sales have spiked from all the attention; and film and TV projects beckon alongside his ongoing theater work.But whether Jackson feels anything like capital-P Pride remains up for debate.“It’s a question I’m asking myself, and I haven’t figured out the answer,” the 41-year-old writer-composer-lyricist says. “I guess the pride I feel is more of an individual one, in the sense that for many years I measured myself against other people’s idea of how to be gay or how to live in the world.
I don’t really do that anymore, which I feel good about, but I also feel a little in my own lane about it. “In a very general way I support the advocacy of pride, particularly things that are helping kids, but there definitely is a corporate feel to it that I don’t resonate with,” he continues. “The other night I went to an event where they were cheering their sponsors, and it’s just very bizarre to see queer people cheering banks and oil companies and weapons manufacturers.
But I guess that’s inclusion!”It’s an answer that embraces ambivalence, complexity and discomfort — and that’s punctuated by a skewering wit.
