Can the Broadway-bound tuner 'Paradise Square' promote racial healing?
"Paradise Square," the new musical in previews at Chicago's James M. Nederlander Theatre, premiered at California's Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2019 and was headed to Broadway when the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
The producers and the creative team, led by director Moisés Kaufman ("The Laramie Project," "I Am My Own Wife"), regrouped and relocated to Chicago, where the pre-Broadway tryout opens here Wednesday, Nov. 17, in advance of February's Broadway premiere.
Set during the Civil War, "Paradise Square" centers on the people living in Five Points, a New York City slum that was home to free Blacks and Irish immigrants whose peaceful coexistence included sharing their cultural traditions, specifically dance, which led to the emergence of tap dancing. But the harmony they established shattered with the enactment of the first federal draft, which led to the deadly New York Draft Riots of 1863.
"The Five Points area of Manhattan was a place where a social experiment took place," Kaufman said. "The kind of social contracts that are being negotiated in the play are the same social contracts we are negotiating now."
The fact that "Paradise Square" addresses race relations makes the musical especially resonant today, in that what unfolds on stage echoes the 2020 civil unrest sparked by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.
"When I see Black Lives Matter, and I see protests, I see the same things that were happening down there at the time - a certain camaraderie, a certain unity of purpose," he said.
Eight years in the making, "Paradise Square" has a score by composer Jason Howland and lyricists Nathan Tysen and Masi Asare, along with songs by 19th-century American composer Stephen Foster. The book is by Christina Anderson, Marcus Gardley, Craig Lucas and Larry Kirwan.
Before signing on to "Paradise Square" five years ago, Kaufman was unfamiliar with the Five Points story despite having lived in Manhattan for 35 years.
"It wasn't a utopia," he said of the 19th-century neighborhood. "It was an accidental society."
So can a show like "Paradise Square" promote racial healing? Kaufman cannot say. But he will say that in showing the "human connections that happen within the larger social wars that are happening, and how to maintain our humanity in the face of this historic moment of upheaval," the musical can help people re-examine how they relate to each other.
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"Paradise Square"
When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, through Dec. 5
Where: James M. Nederlander Theatre, 24 W. Randolph St., Chicago
Tickets: $35.50-$121.50; (800) 775-2000 or broadwayinchicago.com
COVID-19 precautions: Proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 test; masks mandatory