Michael R. Jackson

2019 Winner in
Drama

Michael R. Jackson holds a BFA and MFA in playwriting and musical theatre writing

from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. As a songwriter, he has seen his work

performed everywhere from Joe’s Pub to the National Alliance for Musical Theatre.

He wrote lyrics and co-wrote book for the musical adaptation of the 2007 horror film

Teeth with composer and co-bookwriter Anna K. Jacobs. He wrote book, music, and

lyrics for the musicals White Girl in Danger and A Strange Loop, which received its

world premiere at Playwrights Horizons in co-production with Page 73 Productions

in 2019. He has received a 2017 Jonathan Larson Grant, a 2017 Lincoln

Center Emerging Artist Award, a 2017 ASCAP Foundation Harold Adamson Award,

a 2016/2017 Dramatist Guild fellowship, and was the 2017 Williamstown Theatre

Festival Playwright-in-Residence. He has commissions from Grove Entertainment,

Barbara Whitman Productions, and LCT3.

Photo Credit:
Beowulf Sheehan
Reviews & Praise

“A full-on laparoscopy of the heart, soul, and loins — A Strange Loop is a gutsy, jubilantly anguished musical with infectious melodies by the very deft Michael R. Jackson.” —Ben Brantley, New York Times

“Jackson’s triumph with A Strange Loop is that by diving into the excruciatingly personal, he finds the broadly human.” —Sarah Holdren, New York Magazine

Selected Works

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From the Selection Committee

Deftly attuned to pop culture and to the language of the twenty-first century, Michael R. Jackson fashions his plays phrase by phrase, layering irony, humor, pastiche, cultural references, and deep feeling. In a Joycean stream of consciousness, we explore a character buried under the weight of societal projections. The new linguistic pleasures in his work reflect and refract our oldest concerns as human beings:  how do we make visible who we are to ourselves and to others? His kinetic plays fairly buzz with energy, his characters self-aware and blithely out of it all at once. This work is robustly intelligent, unflinchingly honest, dizzyingly screwball, and a sheer delight.

Outside Links
Video (Singing "Memory Song" from A STRANGE LOOP)
Scene to Song Episode 4: Equity and Diversity in Musical Theater
"Second Wave" from A Strange Loop
Interview (American Theatre Magazine)