https://deadline.com/2019/12/broadw...musical-bob-dylan-michael-jackson-1202812648/
West Side Story’ Revival, Michael Jackson & Bob Dylan Musicals Among Broadway’s Most Anticipated Shows
...Broadway’s Thriller
If Mrs. Doubtfire is set to wade into the pool of shifting social attitudes, MJ The Musical could splash up a tidal wave. One of the most popular musical icons of the 20th Century – and the most divisive of the 21st – Michael Jackson is getting his own jukebox musical. On first consideration, the concept seems ill-timed, at best. This year’s HBO documentary Leaving Neverland, chronicling two men who say they were groomed and molested as children by Jackson, delivered what many would have thought was a fatal blow to the King of Pop’s reputation, notwithstanding Dave Chappelle‘s skepticism and the vehement denials of the Jackson Estate, a producer of MJ.
But there are other reputations to consider with MJ, and they’re exemplary, worthy of the benefit of the doubt. The book of the musical is written by Lynn Nottage, winner of not one but two Pulitzer Prizes for drama (Ruined, 2009, and Sweat, 2017). The director and choreographer is Christopher Wheeldon, who won a Tony Award for his 2015 choreography of Broadway’s An American in Paris. Ephraim Sykes, who was Tony nominated this year for his performance in Ain’t Too Proud and was an original cast member of Hamilton, will play Michael Jackson. Sykes is a performer whose time for the solo spotlight has come.
Exactly how, if, to what extent and how convincingly MJ addresses the molestation accusations won’t be known until audiences get a look (previews begin at the Neil Simon Theatre on July 6, with an opening of Aug. 13). What we do know is that the musical centers around rehearsals for Jackson’s 1992 Dangerous World Tour and features more than 25 Jackson songs. Sykes has told Essence magazine that he hopes “to show how human [Jackson] truly was,” and that, “hopefully we can all have a little bit more empathy with him, his downfalls, his demons, his struggles…”
Aside from whether the show works or not, MJ promises to offer a glimpse at how a top-flight creative team navigates some of theater’s foundational questions, of commerce and art, of fact and fiction and how perspective and affinity shape each, and of who, when all is said and done, is worthiest of our devotion. A decade after his death, Michael Jackson isn’t going anywhere, but neither are his accusers. How Broadway deals with that is a story in and of itself, waiting to be written.
