Go Inside Opening Night of A STRANGE LOOP on Broadway

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

Michael R. Jackson's Pulitzer Prize winning groundbreaking musical A Strange Loop has come to Broadway

and we're here to celebrate with the company. I can finally say it, welcome to Broadway. How does it feel

It feels wonderful, amazing. This has been quite a journey. How many years has this journey been for you

It's been about 18 years to Broadway. What made you like stick it through and stay and just just keep doing and doing and doing

The thing that made me sort of stick it through was just trying to capture this experience kind of in a jar, like a butterfly or a firefly, I guess

I was just I had never seen this kind of story told before and I wanted to try to nail the specificity and the nuance of it

And it just, you know, it was also an exploration of it

self. And like, as a younger person, I was always, like, going, like, why am I like this? Why am I like this? Why are things like this

And so I sort of couldn't stop until I, like, solved the problem, as it were

Everything is going through my mind. I'm just, I'm excited. I'm, I'm, I'm

overwhelmed but I so grateful to be here I grateful to be on this journey I grateful to be talking to y I talking to Broadway world We made it Like you know like I just really excited to be on this journey with everyone here

What's made it so special for me is to be in a space where I'm surrounded

by black queer artists. I've never experienced that. And it makes such a difference

for the work that you do when you're around people that understand your struggles and understand your triumphs

and actually can lift you up on those days when it's like, I don't know if I have it in me to tell this story

tell this story or to go through this stuff. They see it in me and they're like, we got you

baby. Let's go. Let's tell it. And it's just a very, a loving room, a loving environment

and the license is just so full of black queer joy. I keep thinking about Mesquite, Texas

where I'm from, where like this is a wild, unimaginable dream. I remember in middle school

you had to like choose what you wanted to do for the rest of your life. And I was like, I think I want to be an actor. And my teacher's like, you can't choose that. Like, that won't

work for the assignment. Here I am. I think I understood the assignment. I love y'all. It's

Playbill and Broadway World. We go back, honey. I used to skip class to see what's on Broadway

World, okay? I love it. You said, don't touch my mic. I know that's right. You can touch it

You can touch it. No, I think. Go ahead. I want you to hold this for a second. You're holding the Broadway World mic And it heavy This is good Y are rich Okay So you used to cut school right You can tell us I would cut class at Carnegie Mellon University just to see what posted on Broadway World and to be here

It's kind of unreal. It's really unreal. I got all A's though, let's be clear

For me personally, what's been special is being able to sort of follow and continue in the legacy that peppermint set and head over heels

There's not a lot of black trans women being seen on broad women. women being seen on Broadway period. So to be the, in many ways, the second one

originating a role is very important to me. It's really about visibility, honestly

in representation. Yeah. It's been a long journey. I've been a part of the show for 10

years from my first workshop and reading of it. It's been a journey about a group of

people who just kept saying yes to each other. We just kept showing up for Michael

Michael just kept having us back so it feels like a team that stuck together and now we're here

feels like the instinct that we had about the piece is being validated and confirmed

And that instinct was that it was special, that it was going to mean something to people

I haven't really landed yet. Someone asked me the other day, you know, we're in previews

Like, how was the first performance? And I was like, I don't recall. I wasn't there

So I just, I haven't landed yet. I feel like I a leaf kind of landing slowly It feels heavenly right now It really does An artist friend of mine by the name of Corey Tutt did all of the artwork on my outfit

today. He asked me what are some of the things that you want to say and I wanted to say

something to all those gay black boys and I wanted them to know that they are loved

they are loved, they are loved and so that is the statement on my outfit but

Corey Tut designed it and then I've always wanted a pair of John Fleubovog shoes

And so now that I'm on Broadway, I bought me some John Flewock shoes

It's been such a long journey to get here, but it's like such a moment to celebrate

with the amazing humans that are involved with this show. And so any moment, any occasion like this

feels like a party. It feels like a celebration, so it's really great. I keep like waiting for somebody to be like

no, not you, not for you. Like I have to keep reminding myself

no, no, you've worked hard. You've worked hard and you deserve to be here and soak it in and celebrate this moment

What made it special for me was really the cast, really developing a relationship with them

and making them feel like themselves on stage and just turning that volume up so that it's both

entertaining but that it's heartfelt, that it has a soul, and that's just not something you see

all the time on Broadway, so that feels very special to me