Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.

It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Thorn.

The Broadway musical A Strange Louvre starts at intermission.

The lights go down in center stage you see an usher, sort of classic Broadway usher,

red jacket and black pants, the whole thing.

He's working intermission, but the usher is the star of the show.

He's surrounded by six figures wearing beige jumpsuits.

Each person represents a different thought.

Some of them have questions about the show he's working at, a Disney musical.

Others ask about the show he's writing in his free time.

A Strange Louvre is a musical about writing a musical.

It's about the usher, whose name also happens to be usher, and his life.

His parents, his friends, his self-doubt, his aspirations.

It's also about identity.

What does it mean to be a black gay playwright?

What does it mean to write a work of art about blackness or queerness?

And for whom is that art?

A Strange Louvre explores some very big ideas in its hour and forty-five minute runtime,

but it is also funny, approachable, and very catchy.

A Strange Louvre was honored as best musical and best book of a musical, at the most recent

Tony Awards.

Our correspondent Julie Klausner caught the show on Broadway, and she fell in love right

...