Complete Casting Announced for PARADISE SQUARE on Broadway

Complete casting has been announced for Paradise Square on Broadway. The production begins rehearsals today in New York City. Previews begin in four weeks on Tuesday, March 15, 2022, prior to opening night on Sunday, April 3, 2022 at Broadway's Ethel Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street).

Tony Award nominee Joaquina Kalukango (Slave Play) leads the 40-member cast that also features Chilina Kennedy (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical), Tony Award nominee John Dossett (Newsies, Gypsy), Sidney Dupont (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical), A.J. Shively (La Cage aux Folles, Bright Star), Nathaniel Stampley (The Gershwin's Porgy & Bess, The Color Purple), Gabrielle McClinton (Pippin, Chicago), Jacob Fishel (Fiddler on the Roof), Kevin Dennis (Canadian productions of Young Frankenstein, Assassins) and Matt Bogart (Smokey Joe's Café, Miss Saigon). Aisha Jackson (Frozen, Waitress, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical) will stand by for Ms. Kalukango.

The production also features Garrett Coleman, Jason Oremus, Colin Barkell, Karen Burthwright, Kennedy Caughell, Dwayne Clark, Conor Coleman, Eric Craig, Colin Cunliffe, Chloe Davis, Josh Davis, Bernard Dotson, Jamal Christopher Douglas, Camille Eanga-Selenge, Sam Edgerly, Shiloh Goodin, Sean Jenness, Joshua Keith, Jay McKenzie, Ben Michael, Kayla Pecchioni, Eilis Quinn, Lee Siegel, Erica Spyres, Lael Van Keuren, Sir Brock Warren, Alan Wiggins, Kristen Beth Williams and Hailee Kaleem Wright. Paradise Square has a book by Christina Anderson (Good Goods, Inked Baby), Craig Lucas (The Light in the Piazza, An American in Paris) and Larry Kirwan (lead singer of Black 47), with music by Jason Howland (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical), lyrics by Nathan Tysen (Amélie) and Masi Asare (Monsoon Wedding), and additional music by Mr. Kirwan, inspired in part by the songs of Stephen Foster. Musical supervision, music direction and orchestrations are by Mr. Howland, with arrangements by Mr. Howland and Mr. Kirwan. Direction is by two-time Tony Award nominee Moisés Kaufman (I Am My Own Wife, The Laramie Project), who was a 2015 National Medal of Arts recipient under President Barack Obama. Choreography is by Bill T. Jones, who is a two-time Tony Award winner (Spring Awakening, Fela!), 2014 National Medal of Arts recipient also under Obama, and a 2010 Kennedy Center Honoree. Musical staging is by Alex Sanchez (Far From Heaven, NY City Center Encores!). Paradise Square is produced by three-time Tony Award winner Garth H. Drabinsky (Kiss of the Spider Woman (Tony Award, Best Musical), Show Boat (Tony Award, Best Revival of a Musical), Ragtime, Fosse (Tony Award, Best Musical), Parade). Mr. Drabinsky's longtime colleague, documentary filmmaker Peter LeDonne (the Academy Award-nominated Curtain Call and Sister Rose's Passion) is co-producing. The multi-award-winning creative team features scenic design by Allen Moyer, costume design by Toni-Leslie James, lighting design by Donald Holder, sound design by Jon Weston and projection design by Wendall K. Harrington. Dramaturgy is by Thulani Davis and Sydné Mahone.

ABOUT THE MUSICAL

New York City. 1863. The Civil War raged on. An extraordinary thing occurred amid the dangerous streets and crumbling tenement houses of the Five Points, the notorious 19th-century Lower Manhattan slum. For many years, Irish immigrants escaping the devastation of the Great Famine settled alongside free-born Black Americans and those who escaped slavery, arriving by means of the Underground Railroad. The Irish, relegated at that time to the lowest rung of America's social status, received a sympathetic welcome from their Black neighbors (who enjoyed only slightly better treatment in the burgeoning industrial-era city). The two communities co-existed, intermarried, raised families, and shared their cultures in this unlikeliest of neighborhoods.

The amalgamation between the communities took its most exuberant form with raucous dance contests on the floors of the neighborhood bars and dance halls. It is here in the Five Points where tap dancing was born, as Irish step dancing joyously competed with Black American Juba. But this racial equilibrium would come to a sharp and brutal end when President Lincoln's need to institute the first Federal Draft to support the Union Army would incite the deadly NY Draft Riots of July 1863. Within this galvanizing story of racial harmony undone by a country at war with itself, we meet the denizens of a local saloon called Paradise Square: Nelly O'Brien (Joaquina Kalukango), the indomitable Black woman who owns it; Annie Lewis (Chilina Kennedy), her Irish-Catholic sister-in-law and her Black minister husband, Rev. Samuel Jacob Lewis (Nathaniel Stampley); Willie O'Brien (Matt Bogart), Nelly's Irish husband, who is off fighting for the Union army; Owen Duignan (A.J. Shively), a conflicted newly arrived Irish immigrant; Washington Henry (Sidney Dupont), a fearless freedom seeker; Frederic Tiggens (John Dossett), an anti-abolitionist political boss, and Milton Moore (Jacob Fishel), a penniless songwriter trying to capture it all. They have conflicting notions of what it means to be an American while living through one of the most tumultuous eras in our country's history. The world premiere of Paradise Square was produced in January 2019 by Berkeley Repertory Theatre (Artistic Director, Tony Taccone; Managing Director, Susan Medak). The musical was originally conceived by Mr. Kirwan. With visceral and nuanced staging and choreography that captures the pulsating energy when Black and Irish cultures meet, Paradise Square depicts an overlooked true-life moment when hope and possibility shone bright. TICKET INFORMATION: Tickets for Paradise Square are available at Telecharge.com. Tickets for groups of 10 or more are available by calling Broadway Inbound Group Sales at (866) 302-0995 or emailing info@broadwayinbound.com. For the latest health and safety procedures and guidelines, visit https://shubert.nyc/about-us/covid-19-terms-conditions.

Don't Miss a Broadway News Story Sign up for all the news on the Fall season, discounts & more...