‘There’s not a lot of Black stories made by Black creatives in theater’: inside Kwame Kwei-Armah’s new TLC musical

CrazySexyCool, the celebrated playwright’s new show in DC, is a vibrant love letter to the hits and sisterhood of the R&B trio

CrazySexyCool, an ambitious new musical about the visionary 90s trio TLC at Arena Stage in Washington DC, aspires to make good on its title and then some. Crammed with platinum sing-alongs and tabloid-chronicled plot twists, it follows the legendary girl group – Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas and Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins – through more than a decade of success and struggle, resulting in a teeming production that includes piles of era-defining R&B hits, deep racks of vintage Cross Colours T-shirts and a claw-foot bathtub filled with Nikes set aflame. At its most outrageous, CrazySexyCool seems to be testing the tensile strength of the jukebox musical itself.

Then again, this is TLC. The truth was outrageous. And that makes for a busy, dizzying, detail-minded show. Throughout the various dramas unfolding onstage, the musical’s three leads – Holli’ Gabrielle Conway at T-Boz, Jade Milan as Left Eye, Stoney B Woods as Chilli – exude a poise that feels as cool and congenial as the real TLC did when they ruled the radio three decades ago. At a weeknight performance of CrazySexyCool in late June, audience members seemed as if they’d been reunited with old friends, singing, laughing, shouting affirmations and dancing in their seats.