Photo by Marc J. Franklin
By now, you’ve probably heard that a prominent character in Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop, now in its final run at the Lyceum Theatre, is Tyler Perry. No, the multi-hyphenate doesn’t actually appear in the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning musical. But his legacy as one of the few Black power brokers in Hollywood—and more crucially, the writer of some pretty mediocre but extremely successful plays—looms large over the show’s main protagonist as he writes his own semi-autobiographical play, also called A Strange Loop.
Plenty of Black artists have sounded off on Perry’s career, whether they’re defending his right to make abysmal work, criticizing his depictions of Black women, or parodying him, like in a recent episode of Atlanta. Still, there hasn’t been a distillation of Perry’s influence and complicated position in the Black community quite like the musical number “Tyler Perry Writes Real Life,” performed in A Strange Loop by some surprising figures.
First, a brief summary of the musical: A Strange Loop follows a fat, Black, queer man named Usher, who’s an actual usher at The Lion King with aspirations of being a playwright. His Thoughts—which are represented as characters and act as a chorus throughout the production—reveal the chronic self-loathing and insecurity that impedes his writing process and journey to self-love. We also learn about his complicated relationship to his parents in equally hilarious and devastating interactions—the funniest being their insistence that he model his career after Perry’s.