Maya
Phillips

April 26, 2022

And yet, it seems as if there is no measure of praise that could be too much; after all, this is a show that allows a Black gay man to be vulnerable onstage without dismissing or fetishizing his trauma, desires and creative ambitions. Now that’s some radical theater.

Adam
Feldman

April 26, 2022

This wide-ranging intravaganza takes a deep dive, often barely coming up for breath, into a whirlpool of ambition and frustration as his seeming alter ego—a queer, Black writer-composer named Usher (Jaquel Spivey)—struggles to define himself amid traps of sex, race, family, body image, religion and entertainment. It’s screamingly funny and howlingly hurt, and it’s unmissable.

Naveen
Kumar

April 26, 2022

The new musical by Michael R. Jackson performs a phenomenal feat — it is both a raw and unflinching interrogation of identity and the most furiously entertaining show on Broadway.

Greg
Evans

April 26, 2022

Fluidly directed by Stephen Brackett, with Raja Feather Kelly’s clever choreography punctuating Jackson’s delightfully brash score, A Strange Loop grabs hold of us the moment Usher concludes that funny introduction.

Diep
Tran

April 26, 2022

But as I am writing this, it occurs to me that what Jackson does with “A Strange Loop” isn’t just write a musical with catchy tunes and clever lyrics. He’s also successfully testing the conceit of how the universal is rooted in the specific. In making the lead character a fat, Black gay man, within an industry (and larger society) that prioritizes and idolizes skinny, white bodies, Jackson is making a Black gay man an embodiment of the universal. And he’s also written one of the best, and the most groundbreaking, new musicals of the Broadway season.

Bedatri
D.Choudhury

April 26, 2022

I hope that this happens so much and so often that critics no longer feel the need to use the word “radical” when they see the men they take the subway with, the men they see in their delis, and the men they run into in bookstores, also turn up on stage.

Joey
Sims

April 26, 2022

A Strange Loop is not a universal story. That might seem an obvious point to anyone who has seen or heard it. But it’s so key to the adrenaline rush brought about by this masterful new musical at the Lyceum Theatre, which opens tonight. It is a rare thrill to experience a piece so individual, so wholly inimitable, on a Broadway stage.

New York Daily News

Chris
Jones

April 26, 2022

But I’ll end with this: his stated aim in “A Strange Loop” is to amplify, with music and ideas, what it feels like to be a young, Black gay man in the creative melee of New York City, ever more removed from much of the rest of America. In that, he succeeds as no one has before.

Entertainment Weekly

Dave
Quinn

April 26, 2022

The saying “You’ve never seen anything like this before” is often overused in reviews. But when it comes to A Strange Loop, the shattering, electrifying debut musical from Michael E. Jackson that opened Tuesday at New York’s Lyceum Theatre, the phrase would be an understatement.

Johnny
Oleksinski

April 26, 2022

Even if it all plays out like a dramatic therapy session, there is a powerful, raw emotionality to “A Strange Loop,” directed by Stephen Brackett, and a boppin’ score with a couple memorable tunes — if not much polish or, ultimately, much satisfaction.

Associated Press

Mark
Kennedy

April 26, 2022

Jackson does make one terrible mistake, though. Usher’s tormentors take turns toward the beginning questioning the play’s very purpose: “No one cares about a writer who is struggling to write/They’ll say it’s way too repetitious/And so overly ambitious.”

They’re wrong on all counts. May “A Strange Loop” run as long as “The Lion King.”

Robert
Hofler

April 26, 2022

Despite going on to win the Pulitzer Prize, the show has invoked some chat-room gossip that it “doesn’t belong on Broadway.” Yes, that’s what they once said about “Caroline, or Change,” “Avenue Q,” “Fun Home” and “Hamilton” before they hit the big time. Not only does “Loop” belong on Broadway, it is by far the best new musical to open during this very strange theater season.

Zachary
Stewart

April 26, 2022

The result is a triumphant assertion of individuality in a world that increasingly defines us by demography, largely for the purpose of selling us products and politicians. That makes A Strange Loop the best new musical of the Broadway season.

Tim
Teeman

April 26, 2022

In being crafted so individually, Usher emerges as the most bruised and honest Broadway hero on stage right now, taking a Broadway audience on an equally honest and bruising journey. That makes for another strange loop perhaps, and also a necessary and welcome one.

New York Theater

Jonathan
Mandell

April 26, 2022

But part of what makes the show’s arrival on Broadway so welcome is that it means that there is now another strange loop in “A Strange Loop”: The show offers a satisfying Broadway musical even as it skewers Broadway musicals – and everybody in them.

New York Theatre Guide

Juan Michael
Porter II

April 26, 2022

“WOW!” I thought to myself as my body leapt to its feet on its own volition to applaud A Strange Loop. “This must be how people who saw the first performances of Show Boat, Oklahoma!, Company, Rent, or Hamilton felt.” Though I’ve witnessed and studied the innovations in each of those musicals, none of them are as revolutionary as what Michael R. Jackson has accomplished with his Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, now making its Broadway debut.

Helen
Shaw

April 26, 2022

We know what happens to Usher because we know what happens to Michael R. Jackson. But the musical doesn’t know that yet — and at this point, the fabulous, piety-smashing Loop still feels as exhilarating as your first trip on the merry-go-round.