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A Strange Loop is a groundbreaking musical that explores the themes of identity, race, sexuality, and the creative process through the lens of a young, Black, queer writer named Usher. Usher is working as an usher at The Lion King while writing his own musical, A Strange Loop, which is a reflection of his own life and struggles.
The musical is full of catchy tunes, stunning choreography, and powerful performances. But it's also a deeply personal and moving story about self-acceptance and finding your place in the world.
In my interview at The Barbican in London with Kyle Ramar Freeman who plays the lead role and Nathan Armarkwei-Laryea , we talk about all of this and more. We discuss the importance of representation in the arts and the challenges and rewards of playing such a complex role.
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Giuliano:
Kyle, you play Usher, the leading role in this musical. Tell us a little bit about the character and the show.
Kyle:
Usher is a Black gay man writing a musical about a Black gay man who's writing a musical about a Black gay man. He is an usher at a theatre, and while working at the theatre, he's also trying to create his own art. And, in the story we go along with him as he's trying to create that art. But also he's dealing with self-loathing, who he is in the world, his place in his industry, his Blackness, his queerness, his family. He's going through all the things in the show.
Giuliano:
And there's really a lot about his feelings and emotions, about his self-awareness on how to navigate the world. How did you approach that sort of side of the character as an actor?
Kyle:
Well, the easy thing is that Usher goes through things that every human goes through. So approaching a character that has all of these complexities and all of these intersections that I personally have I am a black, gay person, a fat person in musical theatre, so we already connect on that. So it was very easy approaching somebody who is channeling that, because I in some ways have done the same.
Kyle, you play Usher, the leading role in this musical. Tell us a little bit about the character and the show.
Kyle:
Usher is a Black gay man writing a musical about a Black gay man who's writing a musical about a Black gay man. He is an usher at a theatre, and while working at the theatre, he's also trying to create his own art. And, in the story we go along with him as he's trying to create that art. But also he's dealing with self-loathing, who he is in the world, his place in his industry, his Blackness, his queerness, his family. He's going through all the things in the show.
Giuliano:
And there's really a lot about his feelings and emotions, about his self-awareness on how to navigate the world. How did you approach that sort of side of the character as an actor?
Kyle:
Well, the easy thing is that Usher goes through things that every human goes through. So approaching a character that has all of these complexities and all of these intersections that I personally have I am a black, gay person, a fat person in musical theatre, so we already connect on that. So it was very easy approaching somebody who is channeling that, because I in some ways have done the same.
Credit: Marc Brenner
Giuliano:
How about “The Thoughts”? Tell us a little bit about them and how you worked to develop your character around these characters?
Kyle:
Yes, “The Thoughts” are interesting. Usher spends the whole show being taunted by his thoughts, played beautifully by our great cast. They kind of do all of the work low-key. I do a lot of the work, sure, but like they are the moving parts around me, they create the world that I'm writing.
Nathan:
There are six of us who all play Usher's thoughts, so his inner voices, and like the inner demons that he experiences day to day. I play self-loathing, so I'm one of his more sort of “cunty” thoughts. Can I say that? Yes! I play one of his more “cunty” thoughts who's obviously trying to sort of bring him down and get him to change the kind of ”nothing” that self-loathing thinks he is. Someone else plays his sexual ambivalence. Someone else plays his financial faggotry. We play everything through the lens of Usher's mind, so we get a kind of a viewpoint of how he sees all the people in his life.
Giuliano:
Give us a little bit of a sense of the different Black queer lived experiences the character navigates.
Kyle:
Well, first, just like where I come from, I mean, Usher comes from religious backgrounds. I was encouraged to do musical theatre, but I'm a gay person and when you come from a religious background that's just not a thing. So me and him share that and also just being like a fat person in musical theatre. Roles are not made for us in mind. We don't have many roles that we can be a three-dimensional, 360, full-blown person, and Usher allows me to do that.
Nathan:
With self-loathing that was kind of easy for me, because I kind of used to be self-loathing, I have to say, like when I was younger, definitely, and then as I grew older, like you do notice that voice that's kind of opposing everything you do and wanting to sort of be like: you're really going to do that? Why are you doing that? What are you wearing? And I think taking that was useful, but also thinking about, like how someone who refers to themselves as black, fat and gay, how that voice might look, and for me it was about going like it's the opposition of that. It's someone who thinks they're gorgeous. Someone who's lighter skin, which is what I am, was actually an interesting way to look at it. Going like you could never be me in his head, so that was really useful.
Giuliano:
There's a very powerful scene, which is when he meets a white man "Inwood Daddy", tell us about that scene.
Kyle:
It's an interesting scene. Usher is trying to feel wanted and he's trying to feel seen and a bit loved on. And, when you don't love yourself and you don't have self-confidence and you don't have somebody in your life that loves you for who you are and sees you, you will put yourself in situations that are dangerous to your mental health and to your physical health. So Usher, in the midst of all this self-loathing, all of the mess that he's enduring, he puts himself in a situation where he allows himself to be disrespected and like spoken to in the worst way, and that stems from him not being who he is in the world and knowing who he is and standing firm in that. And that's just true for anybody. If you don't know yourself enough, you know, if you don't love yourself enough, you will find yourself in precarious situations all the time, and that is just one of them.
How about “The Thoughts”? Tell us a little bit about them and how you worked to develop your character around these characters?
Kyle:
Yes, “The Thoughts” are interesting. Usher spends the whole show being taunted by his thoughts, played beautifully by our great cast. They kind of do all of the work low-key. I do a lot of the work, sure, but like they are the moving parts around me, they create the world that I'm writing.
Nathan:
There are six of us who all play Usher's thoughts, so his inner voices, and like the inner demons that he experiences day to day. I play self-loathing, so I'm one of his more sort of “cunty” thoughts. Can I say that? Yes! I play one of his more “cunty” thoughts who's obviously trying to sort of bring him down and get him to change the kind of ”nothing” that self-loathing thinks he is. Someone else plays his sexual ambivalence. Someone else plays his financial faggotry. We play everything through the lens of Usher's mind, so we get a kind of a viewpoint of how he sees all the people in his life.
Giuliano:
Give us a little bit of a sense of the different Black queer lived experiences the character navigates.
Kyle:
Well, first, just like where I come from, I mean, Usher comes from religious backgrounds. I was encouraged to do musical theatre, but I'm a gay person and when you come from a religious background that's just not a thing. So me and him share that and also just being like a fat person in musical theatre. Roles are not made for us in mind. We don't have many roles that we can be a three-dimensional, 360, full-blown person, and Usher allows me to do that.
Nathan:
With self-loathing that was kind of easy for me, because I kind of used to be self-loathing, I have to say, like when I was younger, definitely, and then as I grew older, like you do notice that voice that's kind of opposing everything you do and wanting to sort of be like: you're really going to do that? Why are you doing that? What are you wearing? And I think taking that was useful, but also thinking about, like how someone who refers to themselves as black, fat and gay, how that voice might look, and for me it was about going like it's the opposition of that. It's someone who thinks they're gorgeous. Someone who's lighter skin, which is what I am, was actually an interesting way to look at it. Going like you could never be me in his head, so that was really useful.
Giuliano:
There's a very powerful scene, which is when he meets a white man "Inwood Daddy", tell us about that scene.
Kyle:
It's an interesting scene. Usher is trying to feel wanted and he's trying to feel seen and a bit loved on. And, when you don't love yourself and you don't have self-confidence and you don't have somebody in your life that loves you for who you are and sees you, you will put yourself in situations that are dangerous to your mental health and to your physical health. So Usher, in the midst of all this self-loathing, all of the mess that he's enduring, he puts himself in a situation where he allows himself to be disrespected and like spoken to in the worst way, and that stems from him not being who he is in the world and knowing who he is and standing firm in that. And that's just true for anybody. If you don't know yourself enough, you know, if you don't love yourself enough, you will find yourself in precarious situations all the time, and that is just one of them.
Credit: Marc Brenner
Giuliano:
There's another powerful scene, “Exile in Gayville”, which tells a lot about queer communities and about Black people within the queer communities. Tell us a little bit about that scene and the lyrics.
Kyle:
In “Exile in Gayville”, he tries to put himself out there and and not given to all of the self-doubt that he has about his body and who he is. And, like a lot of us who are on those apps grinder and growler it is a thing that, like there's no fats, no femmes, there's a specific market that a lot of people who are on that app want to have fun with and that song basically explores Usher putting himself out there and then getting met with all of this rejection from people who he shouldn't find validation from, but ultimately he wants their approval.
Nathan:
Well, the great thing about ”Exile in Gayville” is that we get to wear really scantily clad clothes and sort of celebrate our bodies. That was something that we were really encouraged to do if that felt comfortable to us. That was wicked. But I mean, the number in general is about a lot of quite hostile gay men saying ”who the fuck are you” to Usher? And sort of having a go at him for his, the way he is, his physique, the darkness of his skin. They reject him based on he's too black, he's too fat, he's too gay.
And to be honest, it happens and so I think, even though it's funny and it's a musical number and it's got lots of sexual kind of sexy sassy dancing in the gay world, you can receive messages like that all the time. Like I was told I got a message that was like “I think you're a bit too fabulous for me”, which essentially is femme-shaming, and my friend who's darker skinned than I, has had really racist comments just thrown in there like it's nothing. So I think, while it's really sexy and fun to do, it also points up quite a dark problem that we have within the gay scene that it's still very racist, still quite femme-shaming and fatist
Giuliano:
and it's interesting that mentioned about how the whole meaning behind the show it's for everyone in the end, there is a universal message behind it.
Kyle:
This show is a show that everybody can connect to. I do want to make it clear, though, that it is a black, gay, fat person's story, and people of colour and Black people and queer people should be the ones seeing the story, because it is for us. But if you're a human being, as I've been saying in like a lot of these interviews, Usher goes through a human experience. It's through a specific lens and it is a specific experience to be black and in theater, and fat and gay. It is very specific.
However, people have felt what he's felt, maybe not the same way or has not gone through the exact same route, but you end up in the same place. You end up feeling like when you look at yourself in the mirror, you don't live that reflection. You feel like you're people from where you come, from your family, your parents don't understand your career path. You felt like you don't understand yourself and what your art means to you first before you give it to the world. So that is the universal experience, but it is a black, queer experience that is so beautifully written by Michael R Jackson that black, queer people should see.
Nathan:
You can connect to the show regardless of race, regardless of sexuality. I'm working with a Jewish producer on something and they came and they were saying how much it impacted them, feeling like they can't be with who they want to be with. Or I've got other friends who are straight who go it's just like me with my religion. So, even though it's about blackness and gayness and body shape, it's so universal.
Giuliano:
How about the music and the lyrics? Tell us a little bit about that, because it is really impactful.
Kyle:
Yes, it's a very catchy musical. A lot of the songs you cannot sing in public because people standing by would not understand, but it is a great musical. What I love about it is that Michael R Jackson wrote a very truthful score. The lyrics are very close to home, they spell out specific experiences, but he puts it to music that is traditionally like a musical theatre sound. It's a bit of rock in there and like gospel influenced, but it's so musical theatre, which makes it great, like although we're telling a story that has really not been seen before or shared, that is raw, that is different from musical theatre, it is undoubtedly like a musical theater score.
Giuliano:
How does Usher find reconciliation in his life?
Kyle:
Here's the thing, it's a hot take. I don't think Usher really finds a true reconciliation, and I think that's beautiful, because sometimes in life you don't find a perfect ending, a perfect answer to all of your problems. I think you learn to accept yourself and your flaws and your insecurities and instead of using them to taunt you, you use them to empower you and influence you and to keep pushing forward, and I think that's the conclusion that Usher comes to.
There's another powerful scene, “Exile in Gayville”, which tells a lot about queer communities and about Black people within the queer communities. Tell us a little bit about that scene and the lyrics.
Kyle:
In “Exile in Gayville”, he tries to put himself out there and and not given to all of the self-doubt that he has about his body and who he is. And, like a lot of us who are on those apps grinder and growler it is a thing that, like there's no fats, no femmes, there's a specific market that a lot of people who are on that app want to have fun with and that song basically explores Usher putting himself out there and then getting met with all of this rejection from people who he shouldn't find validation from, but ultimately he wants their approval.
Nathan:
Well, the great thing about ”Exile in Gayville” is that we get to wear really scantily clad clothes and sort of celebrate our bodies. That was something that we were really encouraged to do if that felt comfortable to us. That was wicked. But I mean, the number in general is about a lot of quite hostile gay men saying ”who the fuck are you” to Usher? And sort of having a go at him for his, the way he is, his physique, the darkness of his skin. They reject him based on he's too black, he's too fat, he's too gay.
And to be honest, it happens and so I think, even though it's funny and it's a musical number and it's got lots of sexual kind of sexy sassy dancing in the gay world, you can receive messages like that all the time. Like I was told I got a message that was like “I think you're a bit too fabulous for me”, which essentially is femme-shaming, and my friend who's darker skinned than I, has had really racist comments just thrown in there like it's nothing. So I think, while it's really sexy and fun to do, it also points up quite a dark problem that we have within the gay scene that it's still very racist, still quite femme-shaming and fatist
Giuliano:
and it's interesting that mentioned about how the whole meaning behind the show it's for everyone in the end, there is a universal message behind it.
Kyle:
This show is a show that everybody can connect to. I do want to make it clear, though, that it is a black, gay, fat person's story, and people of colour and Black people and queer people should be the ones seeing the story, because it is for us. But if you're a human being, as I've been saying in like a lot of these interviews, Usher goes through a human experience. It's through a specific lens and it is a specific experience to be black and in theater, and fat and gay. It is very specific.
However, people have felt what he's felt, maybe not the same way or has not gone through the exact same route, but you end up in the same place. You end up feeling like when you look at yourself in the mirror, you don't live that reflection. You feel like you're people from where you come, from your family, your parents don't understand your career path. You felt like you don't understand yourself and what your art means to you first before you give it to the world. So that is the universal experience, but it is a black, queer experience that is so beautifully written by Michael R Jackson that black, queer people should see.
Nathan:
You can connect to the show regardless of race, regardless of sexuality. I'm working with a Jewish producer on something and they came and they were saying how much it impacted them, feeling like they can't be with who they want to be with. Or I've got other friends who are straight who go it's just like me with my religion. So, even though it's about blackness and gayness and body shape, it's so universal.
Giuliano:
How about the music and the lyrics? Tell us a little bit about that, because it is really impactful.
Kyle:
Yes, it's a very catchy musical. A lot of the songs you cannot sing in public because people standing by would not understand, but it is a great musical. What I love about it is that Michael R Jackson wrote a very truthful score. The lyrics are very close to home, they spell out specific experiences, but he puts it to music that is traditionally like a musical theatre sound. It's a bit of rock in there and like gospel influenced, but it's so musical theatre, which makes it great, like although we're telling a story that has really not been seen before or shared, that is raw, that is different from musical theatre, it is undoubtedly like a musical theater score.
Giuliano:
How does Usher find reconciliation in his life?
Kyle:
Here's the thing, it's a hot take. I don't think Usher really finds a true reconciliation, and I think that's beautiful, because sometimes in life you don't find a perfect ending, a perfect answer to all of your problems. I think you learn to accept yourself and your flaws and your insecurities and instead of using them to taunt you, you use them to empower you and influence you and to keep pushing forward, and I think that's the conclusion that Usher comes to.
Credit: Marc Brenner
Giuliano:
The easiest thing and the hardest thing you found in playing this character.
Kyle:
The easiest thing is that I can just be black. Yeah, like it's a specific experience that I know. So I can just kind of be myself and bring all of my blackness to the role, because it's asking me to be what I am, which is easy in that sense. And the hardest thing is like just again getting in the skin of Usher and like having to hear the crazy things that his thoughts say to him day after day or night after night when I'm doing a show. Like that's the hard thing, because if you're having a bad day, sometimes hearing people call you fat on stage is not the best thing for your mental health. So that's the tricky thing.
Giuliano:
How you cope with that? Like you're in a bad day and you get these kind of lines against you on stage.
Kyle:
I mean me and Usher share similarities but we are not the same. So I know, at the end of the day I am not Usher. Usher allows those thoughts and those demons to speak to him more frequently than I would ever allow myself to, but I use it to inform what Usher is feeling like. If I'm feeling already bad about myself, Usher is feeling worse. So I just kind of channel that, and I learned that from Beyonce. She always says like I love when people get me upset before the show, because then I can channel that into the performance. And that's what I've learned to do, especially in this role. Especially on bad days. I don't bleed too much of myself into Usher, but I use how I'm feeling to inform the story.
Nathan:
Well, I play the mom and like she's she doesn't like to swear, but she loves to say cunt and I loved that really. Not doing so well PR in the background, sorry, but it was so fun. But the director would just tell me to come on and scream cunt and we'd have lots of interesting, detailed conversations about the significance of what that cunt meant. So for me that was really fun.
Giuliano:
Anything that you think the show say about the theatre industry?
Kyle:
It says so much. It says that Black people are not a monolith, that we come in all different shapes and sizes and that we have different stories and different perspectives and that you cannot box us into being one way. We are having a human experience.
Nathan:
I mean we have a whole scene in the show where the people who are like a panel of theatre-makers and critics are going through his work and going this can't fly and this can't fly and saying that no one wants to hear the n word in the musical. So I guess it's kind of meta, within putting on a show like this and commenting on it and performing it to a largely white audience, it's kind of going to take a real look at despite this show has been made, this was 14 years in the making and this is the kind of arduous process it's been through and it’s won the Pulitzer Prize. It's like what other hope does Black art have?
Kyle:
It just says that it is hard to be a Black creative in an industry that is predominantly white and that, at the end of the day, when you meet Black creatives and you are in the room with Black artists and creatives, embrace their art, embrace their humanity. Everybody has a story. Everybody's story should be validated and told and expressed. We are not all the same, but a lot of us share that experience and that should be uplifted, especially for Black people, because, again, I'm playing a role that centres a person that does not get to be centred and luckily it was a hit. But it doesn't need to be another 25 years before we have something close to this. It needs to happen tomorrow!
The easiest thing and the hardest thing you found in playing this character.
Kyle:
The easiest thing is that I can just be black. Yeah, like it's a specific experience that I know. So I can just kind of be myself and bring all of my blackness to the role, because it's asking me to be what I am, which is easy in that sense. And the hardest thing is like just again getting in the skin of Usher and like having to hear the crazy things that his thoughts say to him day after day or night after night when I'm doing a show. Like that's the hard thing, because if you're having a bad day, sometimes hearing people call you fat on stage is not the best thing for your mental health. So that's the tricky thing.
Giuliano:
How you cope with that? Like you're in a bad day and you get these kind of lines against you on stage.
Kyle:
I mean me and Usher share similarities but we are not the same. So I know, at the end of the day I am not Usher. Usher allows those thoughts and those demons to speak to him more frequently than I would ever allow myself to, but I use it to inform what Usher is feeling like. If I'm feeling already bad about myself, Usher is feeling worse. So I just kind of channel that, and I learned that from Beyonce. She always says like I love when people get me upset before the show, because then I can channel that into the performance. And that's what I've learned to do, especially in this role. Especially on bad days. I don't bleed too much of myself into Usher, but I use how I'm feeling to inform the story.
Nathan:
Well, I play the mom and like she's she doesn't like to swear, but she loves to say cunt and I loved that really. Not doing so well PR in the background, sorry, but it was so fun. But the director would just tell me to come on and scream cunt and we'd have lots of interesting, detailed conversations about the significance of what that cunt meant. So for me that was really fun.
Giuliano:
Anything that you think the show say about the theatre industry?
Kyle:
It says so much. It says that Black people are not a monolith, that we come in all different shapes and sizes and that we have different stories and different perspectives and that you cannot box us into being one way. We are having a human experience.
Nathan:
I mean we have a whole scene in the show where the people who are like a panel of theatre-makers and critics are going through his work and going this can't fly and this can't fly and saying that no one wants to hear the n word in the musical. So I guess it's kind of meta, within putting on a show like this and commenting on it and performing it to a largely white audience, it's kind of going to take a real look at despite this show has been made, this was 14 years in the making and this is the kind of arduous process it's been through and it’s won the Pulitzer Prize. It's like what other hope does Black art have?
Kyle:
It just says that it is hard to be a Black creative in an industry that is predominantly white and that, at the end of the day, when you meet Black creatives and you are in the room with Black artists and creatives, embrace their art, embrace their humanity. Everybody has a story. Everybody's story should be validated and told and expressed. We are not all the same, but a lot of us share that experience and that should be uplifted, especially for Black people, because, again, I'm playing a role that centres a person that does not get to be centred and luckily it was a hit. But it doesn't need to be another 25 years before we have something close to this. It needs to happen tomorrow!