When rehearsals started in 2022, Roman Banks would look at the choreographer and shake his head.
No way his body was going to move like that.
“There were many times ... where I would be like, ‘There is no way that I can do that,’” said Banks, who plays Michael Jackson in “MJ: The Musical,” which Broadway In Tucson is bringing to Centennial Hall next week. “They would do the dance in front of me, and I would be like, ‘No, my body doesn’t work that way.’”
But as rehearsals for the first national tour of the jukebox musical went from tiptoeing through Christopher Wheeldon's Tony-winning choreography to committing the steps to muscle memory, Banks realized that, yes, his body was capable.
“When you finally do something that you thought at one point was completely impossible, it really changes the way you look at yourself and the world and opportunities in front of you,” said Banks, who was 100 performances into the tour when he called from a run in San Francisco in early February.
This is the first national tour of “MJ: The Musical,” the jukebox musical written by Lynn Nottage that is still on Broadway. In addition to a Tony Award for Wheeldon, the show won three other Tonys including for best actor (Myles Frost).
Banks comes to the role after appearing in “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” on Disney+ and a two-year run as an understudy with “Dear Evan Hansen” on Broadway; in December 2018, he became the first person of color to play the role on Broadway.
“It was the first time I performed on Broadway so it was really special,” said the 25-year-old native of Stone Mountain, Georgia, a small bedroom community of Atlanta.
Banks was cast for “MJ” in October 2022 and spent nearly a year learning the dance steps before the show opened in August 2023. But his journey to playing the King of Pop started in his parent’s living room, listening to his mom’s Jackson 5 records.
A conversation with an uncle who was a dancer in Michael Jackson’s “Bad” video got him interested in Jackson’s solo career.
“From that point, I just kinda fell down the rabbit hole of all his music videos,” Banks said. “I was really into dancing at that time and I got on YouTube looking for videos of him dancing.”
Roman Banks, center, is Michael Jackson in the inaugural national tour of "MJ: The Musical," a Michael Jackson jukebox musical.
Nottage’s play takes place in the days leading up to Jackson’s 1992 “Dangerous World Tour,” featuring flashbacks to his childhood singing with his brothers and his ascension to the top of the pop music charts.
The show sidesteps what the world later learned of Jackson, the allegations of child sexual abuse that played out in civil litigation and Jackson’s bizarre and very public behavior that included dangling his then infant son out of a Berlin hotel balcony in 2002.
“I don’t know if there’s any musical we could put out that would tell the story of Michael Jackson’s life that would satisfy everybody,” Banks said. “But as far as educating people on sort of the artist he was and the man that he was, I’m happy with the journey that our show took to put that on stage. I’m privileged to being in a position to play this role and to humanize somebody who other people might never see as one because of the scale of his life and his accomplishments.”
“MJ: The Musical” features 25 of the singer’s iconic hits, including “Man in the Mirror,” “Billie Jean,” “Bad,” “Thriller” and “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’,” as well as several Jackson 5 songs including “I’ll Be There.”
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