MJ The Musical

MJ is a jukebox musical about the life and music of Michael Jackson. Instead of marching through his biography from birth onward, it settles on a single moment, June 1992, when Jackson and his company are rehearsing for the Dangerous World Tour. From that rehearsal room the evening keeps cutting back to earlier years, so you meet him as a child singer, as a teenager and young adult recording first with his brothers and then on his own, and as the star preparing that tour.

The book is by Lynn Nottage, a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and Christopher Wheeldon both directs and choreographs. The score draws on more than 25 Michael Jackson hits, plus a handful of songs that other artists recorded first. The Estate of Michael Jackson backed the project when it was announced and is among its producers.

The Broadway engagement at the Neil Simon Theatre is the show's world premiere; it never had an out-of-town tryout. It opened on February 1, 2022, and won four Tony Awards that year. Since then it has been staged in London, Hamburg and Australia, and a US national tour set out in 2023.

Everything happens during the final rehearsals, two days before the tour's first concert in Munich. Dancers and crew are warming up when a TV journalist named Rachel turns up, with Alejandro behind the camera. They want footage of the preparations and, if they can get it, an interview with Jackson himself. Her questions give the musical its frame: each conversation sends him back into his own past.

In the first act those memories cover a harsh childhood under his father, Joseph Jackson; the Jackson 5 years at Motown under Berry Gordy; and his work with Quincy Jones on Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad. The act ends with Jackson facing reporters at Radio City Music Hall. He unveils the tour there and names the sum it is meant to raise for charity through the Heal the World Foundation.

The second act turns to what the tour will cost. Jackson keeps pitching bigger and pricier staging ideas, and his managers, Rob and Dave, keep telling him the budget cannot cover them. The past breaks in again with the 1984 accident on the set of a Pepsi commercial, when his hair caught fire, and with a childhood appearance by the Jackson 5 at the Apollo Theater. At one point Jackson dresses up as a member of the cleaning staff to slip away from his handlers, just so he can talk with Rachel on his own.

The songs come mostly from records Jackson made as a solo artist and with the Jackson 5. A few numbers began life as other artists' records, among them "Shout" and "Climb Ev'ry Mountain." Many songs are stitched into medleys: the Jackson 5 sequence runs "The Love You Save," "I Want You Back" and "ABC" together, and the first act closes by moving from "Earth Song" into "They Don't Care About Us."

David Holcenberg and Jason Michael Webb wrote the orchestrations and arrangements, with Holcenberg also serving as music supervisor, while Billy Jay Stein and Hiro Iida created the electronic music design. The last number in the running order belongs to the orchestra alone: an instrumental take on "Working Day and Night."

A few numbers worth listening for:

• "Beat It" opens the show, led by MJ with the full company.
• "I'll Be There" brings Katherine Jackson, Little Michael and the adult MJ into one song.
• "Billie Jean" and "Smooth Criminal" start the second act back to back.
• "Money" is a solo for Joseph Jackson.
• "Thriller" gathers Little Michael, MJ and Joseph Jackson on stage with the ensemble.
• "Man in the Mirror" is sung by the whole company, ahead of a finale that brings back "Jam" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" around "Black or White."

The central staging idea is that Jackson is split among three performers. MJ is the man in 1992, Michael covers the teenager and the young adult, and Little Michael is the child. Because the story keeps moving between periods, several numbers put the grown MJ on stage with one of his younger selves, so the 1992 star and the boy who sang with his brothers share the same scene.

The show also doubles three pairs of roles. The actor playing Joseph Jackson also plays Rob, one of the managers pushing back on the tour budget, so the father and the man guarding the money share a face. Berry Gordy and Nick are played by one actor, and so are Tito Jackson and Quincy Jones.

As of October 2026, Ilario Grant plays MJ, with Brandon Lee Harris as Michael, Rebecca Faulkenberry as Rachel, Sasha Allen as Katherine Jackson and Apollo Levine as Joseph Jackson and Rob. Christopher Sean Cooper Jr. and Cree-Silver Corley share the role of Little Michael. Casting changes, so check the official website for the company at your performance.

The musical was first announced in June 2018, with Jackson's estate behind it. Its working title was Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough; the show was later renamed MJ. A pre-Broadway run at the Nederlander Theatre in Chicago, planned for 2019, was called off, and the producers went straight to New York instead. Ephraim Sykes was announced as Jackson in November 2019 but later left the project.

Broadway performances were first expected in summer 2020, until the COVID-19 shutdown of Broadway pushed everything back. Myles Frost was announced in the title role in June 2021, a part that also marked his Broadway debut. The Neil Simon Theatre hosted the first preview on December 6, 2021, and opening night followed on February 1, 2022. The company recorded the cast album on February 7 and 8, 2022, and MJ: The Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording), with 20 tracks, came out on July 15, 2022.

The first US national tour launched on August 1, 2023, at the Nederlander Theatre in Chicago, the same house where the canceled tryout had been planned. In London, the production began previews at the Prince Edward Theatre on March 6, 2024, opened on March 27 with Myles Frost back in the role, and closed on February 28, 2026.

In Hamburg, a German-language version, with the dialogue translated and the songs kept in English, was set to begin in December 2024; as of August 2026 it was running with Benét Monteiro as MJ. An Australian production opened on February 26, 2025, at the Sydney Lyric Theatre; it moved to Melbourne in September 2025 and later visited Brisbane and Perth. A tour of Asia was scheduled to start in October 2026, and a UK tour is planned for 2027.

On Broadway, the title role has changed hands several times. Elijah Johnson played MJ from March 2023 to August 2025, and Matte Martinez followed on September 2, 2025. Ilario Grant, who made his Broadway debut as the standby for MJ and Michael and went on to play MJ in Australia, returned to head the Broadway cast on September 15, 2026. By October 11, 2026, the Broadway production had given 1,957 regular performances after 39 previews. As of August 2026, it had drawn more than two million people on Broadway, and the show had reached more than seven million worldwide.