The smash hit Broadway musical sensation A Strange Loop will transfer from New York to London this summer opening at the Barbican Theatre on 17 June for a strictly limited one-time-only 12-week season.
Making his West End debut, Kyle Ramar Freeman – reprising the lead role he played on Broadway – will star as Usher, a young, gay, Black writer who hates his day job, so writes a musical about a young, gay, Black writer who’s writing a musical about a young, gay, Black writer.
He will be joined on stage by an all-British cast of six Thoughts, who are the physical manifestation of Usher’s internal monologue. Playing the Thoughts are multi-Olivier nominated Jason Pennycooke (Lafayette/Jefferson – Original cast of Hamilton), Sharlene Hector, best known for being a lead vocalist for British band Basement Jaxx, Danny Bailey (Jesus Christ Superstar, Girl From the North Country), Eddie Elliott (Blues for an Alabama Sky, The Lion King and Motown The Musical) and Tendai Humphrey Sitima (The Play That Goes Wrong). Further casting will be announced soon.
Nominated for 11 Tony Awards and winner of every Best Musical award in New York, Michael R. Jackson’s critically acclaimed Pulitzer Prize–winning, blisteringly funny masterwork exposes the heart and soul of Usher – a young, gay, Black writer who hates his day job, so writes a musical about a young, gay, Black writer who’s writing a musical about a young, gay, Black writer…a strange loop. Usher grapples with desires, identity and instincts he both loves and loathes, all brought to life on stage by a hilarious, straight-talking ensemble.
A Strange Loop is only the 10th musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama with the previous winner being Hamilton, with the committee citing the show as a “metafictional musical that tracks the creative process of an artist transforming issues of identity, race, and sexuality that once pushed him to the margins of the cultural mainstream into a meditation on universal human fears and insecurities.”
The New York critics heaped plaudits on this sensational production: The New York Times said the show was a “dazzling ride” and “no measure of praise could be too much”. The Wall Street Journal described the show as “hilarious, intimate and personal” adding that “A Strange Loop is extraordinary in just about every way. It represents theater at its most daring and unexpected”. And Variety summed it up, hailing A Strange Loop as “the most furiously entertaining show on Broadway”.
