Video: The Company of WHITE GIRL IN DANGER on Living in Michael R. Jackson's World

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

Pulitzer Prize winner Michael R. Jackson is back with his latest musical called

White Girl in Danger. Under the direction of Liliana Blaine-Cruz, it begins performances on March 14th at Second Stage

and we drop by Haswell Greens to meet the company. How excited are you

White Girl in Danger. I couldn't be more excited. I couldn't be more excited

I feel like something of the utmost dangerous is going to happen, and everyone's going to witness it

How excited are you to be a part of this? I am incredibly excited

I've been a part of this show since 2017, and we were supposed to get a run early 2020

but then the pandemic happened. So I'm just really happy to finally get

people to see the show. How would you describe what this show is all about

How do you describe White Girl in Danger? The question of the hour. I mean, it's a soap opera town called

And Keisha, part of the black round, is trying to get into the center of it

And so you literally are watching her move through thousands of genres

as she tries to get to the center of the story. How did the idea come to you

Did you love soap operas? Yes, I grew up watching soap operas as a very little kid

Both my parents worked, and so before I was old enough to go to school, they would drop me off

at my great aunt Ruth's house, and we would watch Young and the Restless at 1230

Days of Our Lives at one, Another World at two, and Santa Barbara at three

And I just began to get so engrossed in the world of that

that I carried on even after I started school and as I got older and into college

and into young adulthood. And I got the idea because I also grew up watching

Lifetime movies and Monday Night movies, and I realized that they all had a common thread

which was like, would it be a white girl or a woman who would be in some sort of peril, either of her own making or because of someone

causing problems for her. And I sort of just came up with this funny little tune that goes, white girl in danger

she's doing drugs but she won't do her homework. And it was just gonna be a spoof

of sort of those narratives, but then these conversations about diversity, equity, inclusion, representation

started to really bubble up in culture and I started to think about my perspective on them

as a black author because I sort of come at it in a different place because my sort of default

consciousness is a black one, but I also grew up watching a lot of white things

So I just sort of, the ideas of like this spoof of a soap opera and these conversations around inclusion

sort of came together like H2O. And thus the story for white girl in danger was born

which is a really sort of rip roaring, hilarious, but also sort of secretly deep dive into

the very notion of the word inclusion. I was gonna ask you, what's it like

living in Michael's world? I know how to do this. So because I'm the one with a little experience

on the subject, I came to rehearsal a few days ago. I wasn't in a certain scene and I got there

and everyone's eyes were just crossed and they were a little crazy and I was like, oh, I know where you've been. Yes

Some people might think it's a bit of a fever dream of mind

but I love it. I love Michael's mind and those words and they just kind of fit in my body

and in my mouth really well. It's filthy. It is a filthy place to live in Michael R. Jackson's world

It's brilliant and you can't like dip below 100% ever when you're in this play, which has been sort of like

making me feel all of my joints and my bones in ways that I haven't felt in a while

So it's actually really nice. Yeah. It's so clear to me that Michael is so much smarter

than all of us and has somehow watched more television than any human being on earth

It's really impressive and I'm envious. Yeah. The way his mind works is not only brilliant

but it's very generous and it's expansive. So he's constantly getting ideas

sharpening, refining, clarifying, and having way too much fun. You know, I tell him often like

Michael, I worry about what you think about when you're alone, you know? But it's, and it's inspiring

because it's so beautifully well cast and everyone is so lovely, genuinely beautiful humans

And also everyone's so talented. So it's inspiring just working in inside his mind

and seeing it, you know, vomited on the stage. I think the amazing thing about Michael

is that he writes so specifically, but then as an artist and an actor

when you inhabit the character, it's still so open to interpretation. And then he's open to what you interpret

And then he implements it. And so it really is an actor's dream

Like every actor should work on a new musical and work on a Michael R. Jackson musical

Yeah, it feels like a big collaboration piece. Like he is such a genius

but he also allows us to just like really find ourselves in the work, which I feel like it's a big playground

And I've never, I feel like this is the first time I've gotten the opportunity to just like play

and to like bring back the reasons of why we got into theater in the first place

You know, like it's just a fun experiment. And I also love watching Michael watch his work

Like he's on the side, like doing the lyrics. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes

And we're like, yes, I'm so happy. You love it so much. Like an artist in their love for their work

is so admirable. Working with this group of actors, what it's like

Such a joy. It's a joy to come to work every day. It's really not work

I call it W-E-R-K, work. The environment is great. We laugh, we play, we dance, we cry

We have circles and we breathe. It is absolutely by far the best experience I've had

in a rehearsal room and with this group of actors. We've been doing various readings of this for years

four or five years. And also, I mean, us personally, we've known each other for like 10 plus years, Michael too

It's wild. It feels like a dream to be working on a show

with so many people we know so well. It's a dream, yeah

I'm just so excited. This group, everybody that's touched this piece has been brilliantly talented and fun

And this particular group though is so game to do anything and everything and throw it against the wall

And it's just rocks. It's so fun. What I love about what you write

you're introducing a whole new audience to the theater that's never experienced theater before

Young kids, older people, everybody's been coming to see what you do

And you're introducing a whole new audience to the theater, especially the young ones, what that means to you

It means a lot to me because I love theater and I love musical theater

and I believe very much in the form. And so I want to get as many eyes on it as possible

And I want to push the boundaries of what is possible in theater

because that's what drew me to it in the first place was that I saw things that seemed impossible

like a sort of unlikely inspiration on White Girl in Danger is the musical Showboat

I saw Showboat when I was 13 years old and I had never seen a piece of theater

that was that epic and that sprawling. And it was the Hal Prince 94 revival

And I just felt deeply, madly in love with it. And I wasn't even thinking about being

a musical theater writer at that time, but it's a show that stayed with me because of the form

and sort of embracing the impossible. And I sort of come to White Girl in Danger

with that same ambition