Michael R. Jackson’s Big Broadway Thriller
nytimes.comDuring a walk along the Great White Way this winter, I saw something peculiar: two marquees advertising two Michael Jacksons.
On 52nd Street, at the Neil Simon Theater, where “MJ: The Musical” has been running since December, there’s a graphic of the King of Pop in his iconic early ’90s pose: fedora perched low, obscuring his face; shirttails flying in the artificial wind; white glove; high-water pants; sparkling socks; feet en pointe.
Seven blocks away, at the Lyceum Theater on 45th Street, another sign bore the name “Michael Jackson” and an illustration of a 20-something Black man’s head in semi-profile, with six tiny bodies floating around his face and hair.
This image advertised “A Strange Loop,” the playwright Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning metafictional musical, which premiered on Broadway in April. “It’s a strange loop,” Jackson told me on the phone when I mentioned the coincidence.
