Juan Michael Porter II

nifer Weber’s formula-based though clever pop-and-bop choreography―with a stylistic assist from assistant choreographer MJ Choi―is as fun and catchy as anything Britney Spears ever performed. Likewise, Helen Park’s and Max Vernon’s evocative score is full of bangers that also comment on the action―much like John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Cabaret. And Jiyoun Chang’s lighting, Mia M. and Neal’s hair and wigs, Joe Dulude II and Suki Tsujimoto, and Peter Fitzgerald and Andrew Keister’s make-up designs must be applauded for converting the show into an actual pop concert. But hats off to director Teddy Bergman for doing the impossible―modulating each show-stopping element so that Kim’s wonderful, multilingual book never loses focus. Though KPOP feels fresh, there is a precedent for what it has accomplished. Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II essentially laid out the blueprint when they revolutionized musical theatre in 1927 with Show Boat―another backstage drama and the first Broadway musical to seamlessly integrate dialogue, music, and dance in the service of plot. Almost one century later, it is a pleasure to see this glorious cast of Pan-Asian performers reclaim and elevate the form. If this is the future of Broadway, please consider me a rabid and reinvigorated stan.

'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. That is thanks to his splendid writing and craftsmanship, as well as flawless and often shocking performances given by the cast ― including a fresh-out-of-college leading man, Jaquel Spivey, in his Broadway debut.

How does one stage a traumatizing play that focuses on grooming, pedophilia, misogyny, and incest? In the case of Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned to Drive, which just premiered on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, Mark Brokaw has opted to direct the most painful moments with a 'folks say the wackiest things' shrug. That incongruously lighthearted approach magnifies How I Learned to Drive's horror without investing the words with greater meaning. And what words they are. Vogel has arranged the story of Li'l Bit (Mary-Louise Parker) as a set of non-chronological flashbacks that show the audience how she became a shiftless vagabond who only feels alive when she is driving full pedal to medal.