‘MJ’ on tour: Team behind Michael Jackson musical wants to be startin’ somethin’ great

It’s nearly impossible to overstate the impact Michael Jackson had on pop culture. His dance moves alone remain indelible: He introduced the robot. He seemed to defy physics with the moonwalk, and gravity with the lean in. His groundbreaking, cinematic videos played like mini-movies. His work remains enshrined in his music catalog and shows up everywhere from NCAA gymnastics routines to Jeep commercials. 

This week, Jackson’s singular talent gets another showcase in the Tony Award-winning musical “MJ,” which kicked off its first national tour at the Loop’s Nederlander Theatre on Aug. 1

“It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from or what your pronouns are. Everybody on the planet knows the music of Michael Jackson,” said director/choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, who took home the Tony for best choreography for his work on “MJ.” 

”We live in such divisive times, but sitting in a theater with hundreds of other people who all have that music as a unifying thread is a gratifying experience.”

With a book by Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist Lynn Nottage, “MJ” takes place in the final days before Jackson’s 1992-93 Dangerous tour. At lights up, we’re with the dancers in a rehearsal studio as they warm up and prepare for Jackson’s entrance. His arrival ignites an epic rendition of “Beat It” and sets the tone for all to follow. 

Nottage’s book — which includes flashbacks to key points in Jackson’s career — is packed around more two dozen of his songs and requires three different Michaels to tell the story: “Little Michael” (Josiah Benson and Ethan Joseph alternate in the role) take the show back to the Jackson 5’s formative work with Motown founder Barry Gordy.

“Michael” (Brandon Lee Harris) is tasked with capturing the star’s rise to the top as a young adult.

As adult “MJ,” Roman Banks steps into the signature loafers and is charged with capturing Jackson through 1992, near the peak of his reign as the undisputed King of Pop. 

“It’s not a concert. It’s not a jukebox musical. It’s not a hagiography, it’s not a bio-musical,” Wheeldon said from New York as the tour went into tech. “It’s kind of a collage, where we follow a very clear story that shows how his creativity just exploded.”

Finding a “triple-threat” singer/dancer/actor capable of capturing that creativity was no easy task, Wheeldon said. He didn’t want an impersonator or a mimic. But he needed someone capable of delivering both Jackson’s presence and his signature choreography. 

“Michael was a born musician — he was a body that music passed through in a very unusual way,” Wheeldon said. “He didn’t have any formal training. He couldn’t write music. He just felt it and found ways to transmit it through his movements.

“It was always my intention to find actors who could embody the spirit of Michael Jackson but also shine through as themselves. I also didn’t want the choreography to be just replicas. We used his dance language as a foundation, a starting point, and created new choreography that still honors the original. I mean, people would kill me if the Michael Jackson musical didn’t include the moonwalk, right?” Wheeldon said. 

For Banks, delivering Jackson’s signature moves has been an intense labor of love. He’s not the first one in the family with a close connection to the incredible dance pioneered by the Grammy-winning superstar.

“My mom used to play the Jackson’s greatest hits all the time when I was little. Everyone’s favorite was ‘Rockin’ Robin’. It was fun, it was upbeat, we’d all dance like crazy to it,” Banks said.

“But it wasn’t until I was at my uncle’s house maybe a decade or so later as a teenager that I really appreciated Michael,” he continued. “We were just talking about the music one day and my uncle was like, ‘You know I was in the ‘Bad’ music video, right?’ So he cues up this one spot in the video and there he is, larger than life, this tall black man in a red beret looking right over Michael’s shoulder. I was like, how did no one tell me about this before?

“That led me down the rabbit hole of watching all of Michael’s videos. I must’ve watched ‘Thriller’ 30 times in my living room trying to learn the dance when I was younger,” Banks said. 

“The really iconic moves — I call them timekeepers,” he said. “The way Michael would bounce on his heel, or kick, or shove his foot into the ground, the spin, the glide, the shuffle — it’s all to keep time, even when it looks like he’s floating he’s so precise. 

“You can see the influences of Fred Astaire, Sammy Davis Jr. and Bob Fosse in his work. Michael cultivated their movements and put them into his own,” Banks said. 

For costume designer Paul Tazewell, capturing Michael Jackson’s look meant walking a tightrope between history and story. As a fictionalized rendering of a real event, the musical straddles fact and storytelling. 

“I grew up with brothers, and we all wanted to be the Jackson 5,” said Tazewell. “Some of the costumes are how I remember the Jacksons from back then. I also did a re-creation of what he wore to the 1984 Grammys, which was really fun,” he said of the military-esque black jacket with gold epaulets Jackson wore the night he won an historic eight trophies. 

The billowy white shirt, black pants, oversized white socks and fedoras Jackson favored loom large at the top of the show and at a pivotal moment in second act, Tazewell said. The iconic red jacket from “Thriller” shows too, but for Banks, stepping into the loafers custom-made for the show was a transformative experience. 

“When I put on the shoes for the first time, it really was such a moment. It reminded me I’m here to honor an incredible artist,” he said. 

For Banks, channeling Michael Jackson’s style has been a game-changer.

“Before this job, I hadn’t seriously danced in about five years, so I was very, very nervous starting out. Even his silhouettes are famous,” said Banks, whose previous credits include being the first Black actor to play the title role on Broadway in “Dear Evan Hanson.”

 “There were steps I had to do for months to get them right, moves where you really can’t get them down any other way but repetition,” said Banks. “Every time I put on that white shirt I am reminded of the journey this show has been. And the incredible artistry we want to convey.”