A Strange Loop is the 2020 recipient of the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Drama. The musical by Michael R. Jackson earns the distinction on the heels of receiving the 2020 Pulitzer Prize, an Off-Broadway Alliance Award, the Dramatists Guild of America’s Hull-Warriner Award, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award.
“As a Black, queer artist, it’s really affirming to have my work honored in this way,” Jackson said in his video acceptance speech. “I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart.”
The semi-autobiographical piece follows a young, Black, queer artist at war with a host of personal and external demons as he attempts to understand his own “strange loop”—through his own, semi-autobiographical musical about a young, Black, queer artist. It made its world premiere Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in a co-production with Page 73.
The musical is eyeing a Washington, D.C., bow at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in summer 2021 (pushed from this September due to the coronavirus pandemic).Jackson’s additional works include Only Children with Rachel Peters, a musical adaptation of the cult horror film Teeth with Anna K. Jacobs, and the song cycle The Kids on the Lawn. He is also slated to take part in Playbill and Pride Plays’ Pride Spectacular concert June 28.
Winners were selected from a pool of over a thousand submissions by a panel of literary professionals. For the full list of recipients, visit LambdaLiteraray.org.
