Michael R. Jackson

Michael R. Jackson is an American composer, playwright and lyricist from Detroit. Best known for his 2022 musical A Strange Loop, the show was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won two: Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical. Jackson also won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2020, making him the first black musical theatre writer to win the award. Additionally, Jackson reviewed two Drama Desk Awards, two Outer Critics Circle Award Honors, two Obie Awards and an Antonyo Award for Best Book, all for A Strange Loop. In 2018, he was named one of The New York Times' “Black Male Writers for our Time” and received a Jonathan Larson Grant in 2017 from the American Theatre Wing. Jackson’s latest show White Girl in Danger opened Off Broadway in April 2023 and explores the ideas of identity and race in daytime soap operas.