Openly gay playwright wins Pulitzer Prize for musical ‘A Strange Loop’

ABOVE: Full company of “A Strange Loop.” (Photo by Joan Marcus, from PlaywrightsHorizons.org)

Michael R. Jackson, an openly gay black playwright from the U.S., was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Drama May 4 for his musical “A Strange Loop.”

“A Strange Loop” is only the 10th musical to win the prestigious award. Past musicals to receive a Pulitzer include “Hamilton,” “Next to Normal,” “Rent,” “Sunday in the Park With George,” “A Chorus Line,” “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” “Fiorello!,” “South Pacific” and “Of Thee I Sing.”

The Off-Broadway musical tells the story of Usher who “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,” the musical’s synopsis reads. “Michael R. Jackson’s blistering, momentous new musical follows a young artist at war with a host of demons — not least of which, the punishing thoughts in his own head — in an attempt to capture and understand his own strange loop.”

“A Strange Loop” ran at the Playwrights Horizons theater in New York City in the summer of 2019 and recently received six Drama Desk Award nominations, including one for Best Musical.

Watch the trailer for “A Strange Loop” below.