The playwright of the musical revealed that he wants to strive toward a different collective perspective.
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Nitzberg describes the musical as “a layered look at the entire landscape of Jackson’s life” which includes tackling racism, religious oppression as a Jehovah’s witness, cultural appropriation, and Michael’s rumoured rivalry with Donny Osmond. The musical will not include MJ’s music (likely because they didn’t get the rights to it for this questionable production), and instead will feature 20 original songs. All of the roles will be played using Japanese Bunraku-style puppets, including the MJ character, played by SNL writer Jerry Minor and, of course, the glove named “THRHIL-LHA”, played by Eric B. Anthony from Broadway’s The Lion King. Though he was previously attached to the project, THR has reported that neither Johnny Depp nor his production company Infinitum Nihil are producing nor are they affiliated with the production in any way, according to Johnny Depp’s rep.
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Nitzberg shares that the musical is his attempt to shift away from “cancel culture” and instead, towards practicing “process culture.” This concept would supposedly occur if “we process how fucked up people are and understand what made them that way.” He believes that “there’s a collective trauma of everyone who grew up as a Jackson 5 fan and a Michael fan,” and that his musical will be “a way to process that in a fun way while helping people understand all of the really fucked up stuff that affected Michael’s life.” The production is set to open on January 25th, 2020.
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