Lillias White and Reeve Carney Will Reunite to Lead TEXAS IN PARIS Off-Broadway
The Hadestown co-stars will reunite to perform Alan Govenar's musical about two strangers navigating cultural differences through music.
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Hadestown co-stars Tony Award winner Lillias White and Reeve Carney will reunite in a limited engagement of a new Off-Broadway production of Texas in Paris, the musical, based on true events, by Alan Govenar. Previews are scheduled to begin on Thursday, January 14, 2027 at 7pm at The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center with an official opening on Thursday, January 21 at 6:30pm. Performances will run through February 28, 2027). The show will be directed by Akin Babatundé.
Two very different people are invited to Paris to bring the music of the “real Texas” to a French audience. A Black nanny singing a cappella spirituals and a white cowboy performing country hymns and songs of the Old West. They've never met. Never shared a stage together. Two people uneasy with each other who have a conversation in music and an unexpected dialogue about race they never thought they could have.
The cast is Lillias White (Broadway: The Life - Tony Award, Fela! – Tony nomination, Hadestown, Chicago; Film: Hercules; TV: “The Get Down”) as Osceola Mays and Reeve Carney (Broadway: Hadestown, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, The Great Gatsby; TV: “Penny Dreadful”) as John Burrus.
The production features scenic design by Jim Morgan (Broadway: Anna Karenina, Getting Married, Taking Steps, The Miser, Zoya's Apartment, Sweeney Todd, Souvenir), costume design by Christopher Vergara (Broadway: Here Lies Love, The Kite Runner, Once on This Island, Eclipsed, The Color Purple, The Visit), lighting design by Alan C. Edwards (Off Broadway: Monte Cristo, This Is Not A Drill, Dakar 2000, White Rose: The Musical, Fires In The Mirror), music supervision and arrangements by Amy Jones (Broadway Backwards, Texas in Paris), sound design by Jon Weston (The Wiz, Parade, She Loves Me, An American in Paris, The Bridges of Madison County, Big Fish, 13, The Color Purple, Caroline, or Change), wig and make-up design by Jared Janas (Broadway: Beaches, A New Musical, The Ballusters, Proof, Bug) and projection design by Jason Johnson-Spinos (Off Broadway: Texas in Paris, Lonesome Blues). Community outreach by Marcia Pendleton. General Management by LKD Productions/Lisa Dozier Shacket & Michael Shannon. Production Management by Five Ohm. Production Stage Manager is lark hackshaw.
Playwright Alan Govenar states “Texas in Paris embraces a musical songbook rarely heard in New York theatre. A deeply personal celebration of roots music and its capacity to transform the characters, compelling them to assess their cultural baggage and interact in profound ways with one another in their quest to find common ground.”
Biographies
Alan Govenar (Playwright) is an award-winning writer, playwright, poet, photographer, and filmmaker. A Guggenheim Fellow, Govenar is the author of more than forty books, including Come Round Right, Texas Blues, Lightnin' Hopkins: His Life and Music, Everyday Culture: Seven Projects of Documentary Arts (with Brian Wallis), and Osceola: Memories of a Sharecropper's Daughter (First Place, Children's Non-Fiction, New York Book Festival). Govenar's theatrical works include musicals he has created with Akin Babatundé: Blind Lemon: Prince of Country Blues (Leon Rabin Award, Best New Musical), Blind Lemon Blues, and Lonesome Blues. He is the co-author of the musical Stompin' at the Savoy, with Phaedra Michelle Scott. Govenar's musical, Texas in Paris, had its world premiere off Broadway at the York Theatre (New York City) and was featured at the Festival de l'Imaginaire (Paris).
Akin Babatundé (Director) is an accomplished actor, director, and writer whose theatrical career spans over five decades, from regional, Off-Broadway, and international stages to film and TV. He has been a resident company member of several theatrical institutions: Trinity Repertory Theater, La Mama Theater, Alley Theater, and the Dallas Theater Center. Although a native New Yorker, Babatundé chooses Dallas as his artistic home and continues to mentor aspiring artists throughout the area. Among his theatrical highlights is the one-man show he co-wrote with his brother, Emmy Award-winning actor Obba Babatundé, entitled Before the Second Set – A Visit with Satchmo. Babatundé co-wrote and starred in Blind Lemon Blues (with Alan Govenar) and directed the original production of Texas in Paris, starring Tony Award-winner Lillias White. His Dallas-Fort Worth directing credits include The Octoroon and Bootycandy at Stage West, The Mountaintop at the Dallas Theater Center, Manchild in the Promised Land at Theatre Three, and The Color Purple at Jubilee Theater. Babatundé holds a Master of Arts degree in Humanities from UT Dallas and was honored with the 2012 Distinguished Alumni Award.
Lillias White (Osceola Mays) appeared most recently in the world premiere of Douglass Lyons' play Mother Daughter Father Son at the Adirondack Theatre Festival. She made her Broadway debut in Barnum. Other Broadway credits include Hadestown, Cats, Carrie, Dreamgirls, Once On This Island, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, Chicago, and Fela! (Tony nomination). For her role in The Life, she won Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards. Off-Broadway, White performed in The New Group's Black No More, The Public Theater's Romance in Hard Times (Obie Award), Dinah Was at the Gramercy Theatre, Second Stage Theatre's Crowns (Audelco Award) and Texas in Paris at the York Theatre Company. Concert performances include the critically acclaimed cabaret show at 54 Below called The Lillias White Effect, Funny Girl, Hair, Dreamgirls, and South Pacific, which was broadcast by PBS Great Performances. She also has appeared in concert at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center and has toured internationally with her one-woman show, From Booklyn To Broadway. She continues her residency at the Laurie Beechman Theatre. Television appearances include a regular role on “Sesame Street” (Emmy Award); recurring roles on FX's 'Grotesquerie', Netflix's “The Get Down” and “Russian Doll”; and guest star appearances on “New Amsterdam,” “Search Party,” “Gotham,” “Person of Interest,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “Law & Order,” and “NYPD Blue.” Her screen credits include Heartworm, The Drummer, Disney's _Hercules, Anastasia, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Game 6, Pieces Of April _and Then She Found Me. Lillias holds an honorary Ph.D in Fine Arts from the City University of New York.
Reeve Carney (John Burrus) was most recently back on Broadway in The Great Gatsby starring opposite Eva Noblezada and Corbin Bleu. Prior to that he headlined the smash London revival of Cabaret as 'The Emcee' and returned to the role of 'Orpheus' in London's West End production of the Tony and Grammy Award winning musical Hadestown, after originating the role in both London's National Theatre and Broadway productions. The limited engagement reunited him with the other four original principles, and the show was preserved in a live capture pro-shot which is available to stream. It is one of the highest grossing live captures to date. On screen he was seen as 'Tom Ford' in Ridley Scott's feature film House of Gucci for MGM opposite Adam Driver. He is also known for his portrayal of 'Dorian Gray' in the Showtime series Penny Dreadful, and for originating the role of 'Peter Parker/Spider-Man' in the Broadway production Spider-Man Turn Off The Dark (a role that he was handpicked for by Julie Taymor and U2's Bono).
