FOR SENDING THEATERGOERS FOR A ONE-OF-A-KIND LOOP
IN JUNE, WHEN MICHAEL R. Jackson’s won best musical at the Tonys, Broadway fans were hardly surprised. For months, the musical had been generating buzz (and $6 million in box is an atypical Tony winner: It’s a postmodern hall of mirrors about a poor, young, Black, queer man named Usher, who is employed as an actual usher at a Broadway theater while he struggles to write a semi-autobiographical Broadway musical. Supporting actors give voice to Usher’s thoughts, which involve self-loathing, repressed sexuality, and significantly more profanity than patrons of Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre are used to.
