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Paradise Square on Broadway
Paradise Square Tickets

Paradise Square Tickets

New York
15 Mar 2022 - 17 Jul 2022
For a moment in time — one bar in NYC was paradise.

Paradise Square Information

In the slums of Lower Manhattan in 1863, amidst a divided country and a neighborhood crushed by poverty, one extraordinary community was formed. In the Five Points slum, free Blacks and Irish immigrants lived together in something close to harmony — until larger forces tore their corner of the world apart. Now, the new Broadway musical Paradise Square brings the history of Five Points to glorious life. Paradise Square tickets are on sale now.

At the center of Five Points is Paradise Square, a saloon where the neighborhood's Black and Irish populations drink and dance together. The bar's regulars are an eclectic bunch: the Black woman owner, her Irish-Catholic sister-in-law, an anti-abolitionist leader, a just-arrived Irish immigrant with mixed feelings about the neighborhood, and a songwriter desperate to make a buck all congregate together. Within this one bar, all their differing visions of what America should be will clash and mix together.  

Paradise Square features a book co-written by Christina Anderson, Marcus Gardley, and Craig Lucas. Paradise Square on Broadway tells the story of a divided America struggling to define its identity, and a moment in history when the country's best ideals briefly shone through. 

Jason Howland and Nathan Tysen's Paradise Square also uses additional material by Masi Asare and Larry Kirwan. The score combines original songs with reimaginings of the works of 19th-century American composer Stephen Foster. Foster was a composer of parlor and minstrel tunes and is typically considered as "the father of American music." The Paradise Square musical score brings a modern eye to the foundational history of American culture.

Paradise Square combines a thrilling contemporary score with Black American juba and Irish step dancing, two dance styles forms which combined in Five Points slum to eventually form the beginnings of American tap dance. Fela! choreographer and dance legend Bill T. Jones choreographs Paradise Square, with direction by Moisés Kaufman.

Paradise Square was first produced at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2018. It played a pre-Broadway tryout in Chicago, before transferring to the Barrymore Theatre on Broadway. Paradise Square tickets are on sale now.

It’s 1863 and in a 20-block area of Manhattan known as the Five Points, Black and Irish Americans live side by side, work together, marry, and for a brief period realize racial harmony. However, the intensifying Civil War soon results in the first-ever Federal draft, leading to riots as whites are called to enlist while blacks are barred from serving. Will the hard-won bonds of friendship, community, and family in the Five Points prevail or be severed forever?

Run time

2h 35m

Opening date

March 15th, 2022

Closing date

July 17th, 2022

Categories

Musical, Opening Soon

Booking from

February 22nd, 2022

Booking until

July 17th, 2022

Previews from

February 22nd, 2022

Venue

Barrymore Theatre

Age

12+

Cast and creative

By: Christina Anderson, Marcus Gardley, Craig Lucas and Larry Kirwan
Songs by: Jason Howland, Nathan Tysen and Masi Asare
Director: Moises Kaufman
Cast list: Joaquina Kalukango, Chilina Kennedy, John Dossett, Sidney DuPont, A.J. Shively, Nathaniel Stampley, Gabrielle McClinton, Jacob Fishel, Kevin Dennis, Karen Burthwright, Kennedy Caughell, Dwayne Clark, Garrett Coleman, Colin Cunliffe, Chloe Davis, Bernard Dotson, Jamal Christopher Douglas, Sam Edgerly, Shiloh Goodin, Jacobi Hall, Sean Jenness, Jay McKenzie, Ben Michael, Jason Oremus, Eilis Quinn, Sara Sheperd, Lael van Keuren, Sir Brock Warren and Hailee Kaleem Wright
Design: Allen Moyer
Lighting: Donald Holder
Costume: Toni-Leslie James
Choreography: Bill T. Jones
Sound: Jon Weston

Our review

Chilina Kennedy and Joaquina Kalukango in Paradise Square (Photo by Kevin Berne)

Paradise Square, the new Broadway musical, is blessed with a cast of powerhouse singers, Jason Howland's lovely score, and enough action for three separate shows. Unfortunately, that's part of the show's problem. Written by Larry Kirwan, Christina Anderson, and Craig Lucas, the show's book is saddled with so many characters with so many ambitions that three hours is not enough time to resolve their issues.From racism to immigrant rights, murder, capitalism, and worker's rights, the plethora of...

Latest Paradise Square News & Features

It's a banner year for new Broadway talent. For the 2022 Tony Awards, 68 nominees are first-timers, and of those, 40 are nominated for their Broadway debut, according to a Broadway News report. These newly minted honorees are scattered among many of this year's top shows, such as Best Musical nominees A Strange Loop, Six, and MJ The Musical.However, there's a particularly large concentration of first-timers — six of them — in Paradise Square, another Best Musical nominee that's tied for the...

Paradise Square

Paradise Square is the second-most Tony nominated show this season (alongside MJ The Musical) with 10 nods. Led by Tony winner Joaquina Kalukango (who won Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical), Paradise Square is based on true events from a part of New York history that not many Americans know about. The musical is set in 1863 during the Civil War, in Lower Manhattan's Five Points neighborhood. This real-life neighborhood used to house free Black Americans and Irish immigrants, who...

Photo credit: Paradise Square (Photo by Kevin Berne)

Paradise Square will play its final Broadway performance at the Barrymore Theatre on July 17. At the time of closing, the production will have played 23 previews and 108 performances. Get Paradise Square tickets on New York Theatre Guide.Paradise Square takes place in the Five Points neighborhood of Manhattan in 1863. Irish immigrants and free Blacks once lived together in harmony and drank, debated, and danced at the titular tavern. But when the 1863 draft arrives and excludes Black people from...

Paradise Square

Musical theatre paradise is at the Barrymore Theatre in the form of Paradise Square, one of the most Tony-nominated hit shows of 2022. The show takes its name from a fictional tavern run by an interracial couple, Nelly and Willie O'Brien, who represent the broader congregation of Irish immigrants and free Blacks in 1863 Lower Manhattan. Their bar is a place where these two groups mingle in harmony — until the Draft Riots of 1863 break out and pit them against each other.Paradise Square isn't...

Mid-show standing ovations are rare on Broadway — unless you're at Paradise Square. When leading actress Joaquina Kalukango sings the penultimate number, a power ballad called "Let It Burn," she's met with a standing ovation nearly every night.So it's no wonder that when she performed the song at the 2022 Tony Awards, holding an impossibly long final note as tears rolled down her cheeks, the audience at Radio City Music Hall, too, rose to their feet. (It's worth seeing for yourself.)Kalukango's...

Paradise Square

Spend a few hours in "a little bit of Eden" at Paradise Square, a new original musical on Broadway in the 2022 season. With a cast of 40 to perform rousing ensemble songs and vibrant dance numbers choreographed by dance legend Bill T. Jones, Paradise Square is a return to the mega-musicals of the 1990s and the early 2000s, sharing themes and styles with shows like Ragtime that have come before it.Tony Award winner Joaquina Kalukango stars in Paradise Square as Nelly, a free Black woman who owns...

Paradise Square

This is your ticket to paradise! The Broadway premiere production of Paradise Square will offer rush and lottery tickets throughout its run. Performances begin at the Barrymore Theatre March 15 ahead of an April 3 opening night.Rush tickets will be available in person at the Barrymore Theatre box office when it opens at 10 a.m. each day (except Sunday, when it opens at noon). A limited number of $32 tickets will be available each performance day for that afternoon or evening's show. Each person...

Paradise Square

The new musical Paradise Square has announced its full Broadway cast. After completing a pre-Broadway run in Chicago, the new musical is beginning Broadway performances March 15 at the Barrymore Theatre. Opening night is April 3.The principal cast includes Tony Award nominee Joaquina Kalukango, Chilina Kennedy, Tony Award nominee John Dossett, Sidney DuPont, A.J. Shively, Nathaniel Stampley, Gabrielle McClinton, Jacob Fishel, Kevin Dennis, and Matt Bogart. Aisha Jackson is the standby for...

Photo credit: Paradise Square (Photos courtesy of The Press Room NYC)

Following a 2018 world premiere and an upcoming engagement in Chicago, Paradise Square will receive its Broadway premiere in 2022. Paradise Square will begin previews at the Barrymore Theatre on Feb. 22, 2022, ahead of an opening night on Mar. 20, 2022. Find out more about Paradise Square on Broadway here.Set in 19th-century New York, African Americans and Irish Americans live side by side,, eventually finding harmony with one another. After a brief period of co-existing, communities danced...

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