- Performances: 1,230 (as of Jan. 13, 2025).
- Open: February 1, 2022
- Theater: Neil Simon Theatre.
- Tony Awards: Nominated for 10 and won 4 of them, most deservedly it seems for director Christopher Wheeldon’s high-energy choreography in the show.
- Fun Fact: As reported in the New York Times, Tony Award-winner Myles Frost performed as Michael Jackson in a high school talent show five years before making his debut playing Jackson on Broadway. As reported by ME here at Chasing Phantom, current lead actor Jordan Markus name-checked the song “Black Or White” in one of his own songs, “Real,” in 2023 just months before auditioning for the role, ultimately being cast as an understudy.
- Fun Fact #2: Lynn Nottage didn’t win the Tony in 2022 for Best Book of a Musical. Who did? Michael R. Jackson for “A Strange Loop.” Strange indeed!
Podcast
When you want to hear about Michael Jackson, it’s best to talk to the man himself…or, given the impossibility of that, the man who’s playing him. As of New Year’s Eve 2024, the actor playing the title role in “MJ: The Musical” on the show’s first national tour has been Jordan Markus. Markus worked his way up into the role, starting as an understudy, moving into the alternate role, and then finally hitting the top of the marquee after more than a year with the tour.
Markus lends me some insight into the workings of “MJ: The Musical” and talks about his process for inhabiting such a challenging show. Since this show is relative newcomer to the Broadway scene – it opened in 2022 – it doesn’t have some of the rich lore of other long-running hits but I cover the background it does have in my introduction.
If you are a theater snob (like me…) you might write off a production like “MJ” as another one of those “spectacle” shows engineered to keep the tourists entertained on Broadway. Maybe…but it’s worth looking at how exactly this show has managed to become so crazily popular so quickly, already approaching the Top 20 as one of the most lucrative shows ever.
