“At the end of the day, we’re all humans. I think about...a moment where we’re in now where there’s like more division than ever. What I love about theater is that yes, you can...actually empathize with other people who are not you. That is what empathy is. It doesn’t have to be like ‘That’s my experience and that’s the only thing I understand.’ It’s what it means to be alive. We are all alive people. We all like want to be together. We’re social. If you prick me, do I not bleed? All those things and so, I think that’s why I love theater. It can do that." —Michael R. Jackson

Michael R. Jackson is a composer, lyricist, and playwright. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning musical A Strange Loop is about a Black queer musical theater writer. It is the first musical to win a Pulitzer for Drama without a Broadway run, and Jackson is the first Black artist to win a Pulitzer for a musical. Despite Jackson's initial belief that the play would never be produced, its bawdy, joyous, disturbing, funny, and heartbreaking nature has resonated widely, supported by songs that are both catchy and emotionally impactful. In June 2021, joined the Art Works podcast to discuss the making of A Strange Loop and his journey as a playwright.

This Notable Quotable was brought to you in honor of a new season of the Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge! An initiative of the NEA in partnership with the National Alliance for Musical Theater (NAMT), the Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge is an opportunity for high school students to develop and showcase musical compositions that could be a part of a musical theater production. Learn more about how to participate at namt.org/challenge.