Paradise Square, A New Musical, to play Pre-Broadway engagement at Chicago’s James M. Nederlander Theatre
Paradise Square, A New Musical,
to play Pre-Broadway engagement
at Chicago’s James M. Nederlander Theatre,
November 2 – December 5, 2021
CLICK HERE FOR AN EXCLUSIVE LOOK AT
THIS TIMELY AND COMPELLING NEW MUSICAL
(May 18, 2021 – Chicago, IL) – Broadway In Chicago is pleased to announce the Pre-Broadway Premiere of Paradise Square. This bold and uncompromising new musical, which examines a remarkable yet virtually unknown moment in American history, will play a strictly limited engagement from November 2 – December 5, 2021, at Broadway In Chicago’s James M. Nederlander Theatre (24 W. Randolph). Paradise Square will be the first major Pre-Broadway show to raise its curtain in Chicago after the prolonged closure of live theatre due to the global pandemic.
Casting and Broadway theatre and dates will be announced shortly.
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. 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: the indomitable Black woman who owns it; her Irish-Catholic sister-in-law and her Black minister husband; a conflicted newly arrived Irish immigrant; a fearless freedom seeker; an anti-abolitionist political boss, and 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 distinguished creative team for Paradise Square features direction by two-time Tony Award nominee Moisés Kaufman (I Am My Own Wife, The Laramie Project), choreography by two-time Tony Award winner Bill T. Jones (Spring Awakening, Fela!), and a book by Christina Anderson (Good Goods, Inked Baby), Marcus Gardley (The House That Will Not Stand), Craig Lucas (The Light in the Piazza) and Larry Kirwan (lead singer of Black 47). Ten-time Tony Award nominee Graciela Daniele (Ragtime, Once on This Island) will provide musical staging, in collaboration with Kaufman and Jones.
The score of Paradise Square is by the team of Grammy and Emmy Award winner Jason Howland (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Little Women – The Musical) and Nathan Tysen (Amélie, Tuck Everlasting), with additional material provided by Masi Asare (Monsoon Wedding, The Family Resemblance) and Mr. Kirwan. The musical features original songs as well as a reimagining of the songs of Stephen Foster, who was writing and living in the Five Points at the time.
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, projection design by Wendall K. Harrington, special effects
by Gregory Meeh, and hair and wig design by Matthew B. Armentrout. Dramaturgy is by Thulani Davis and Sydné Mahone. Associate choreographers are Talli Jackson and Gelan Lambert. Irish and Hammerstep choreography is by Garrett Coleman and Jason Oremus. Casting is by Stewart/Whitley, CSA.
Paradise Square is produced by 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 world premiere of Paradise Square was produced in January 2019 by Berkeley Repertory Theatre. The musical is based on Hard Times, originally conceived by Mr. Kirwan, which was originally presented at the intimate Off-Broadway theatre, Nancy Manocherian’s the cell, in 2012.
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 are available now for groups of 10 or more by calling Broadway In Chicago Group Sales at (312) 977-1710 or emailing [email protected].
Paradise Square will be a part of the new BIC subscription which launches in August. Individual tickets for Paradise Square will go on sale on June 8. For more information, visit www.BroadwayInChicago.com.
All Broadway In Chicago schedules and productions will continue to be reviewed as further guidance and recommendations are provided by the CDC, State of Illinois, and Chicago Departments of Health. For the latest health and safety procedures and guidelines visit BroadwayInChicago.com/COVID19.
ABOUT BROADWAY IN CHICAGO
Broadway In Chicago was created in July 2000 and over the past 21 years has grown to be one of the largest commercial touring homes in the country. A Nederlander Presentation, Broadway In Chicago lights up the Chicago Theater District entertaining more than 1.7 million people annually in five theatres. Broadway In Chicago presents a full range of entertainment, including musicals and plays, on the stages of five of the finest theatres in Chicago’s Loop including the Cadillac Palace Theatre, CIBC Theatre, James M. Nederlander Theatre, and just off the Magnificent Mile, the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place and presenting Broadway shows at the Auditorium Theatre.
# # #
www.paradisesquaremusical.com
Follow Paradise Square on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
BIOGRAPHIES
Moisés Kaufman (Director) is the founder and artistic director of Tectonic Theater Project, a Tony- and Emmy-nominated director and playwright, and a 2015 recipient of the National Medal of Arts. Mr. Kaufman’s Broadway directing credits include the revival of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song, the revival of The Heiress with Jessica Chastain, 33 Variations (which he also wrote) starring Jane Fonda (Five Tony nominations); Rajiv Joseph’s Pulitzer Prize finalist Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo with Robin Williams; and Doug Wright’s Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning play I Am My Own Wife with Jefferson Mays. His play The Laramie Project (which he wrote with the Tectonic Theater Project company) is among the most performed plays in America. Kaufman also co-wrote and directed the HBO film adaptation of “The Laramie Project,” which received two Emmy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Writer. He is an Obie Award winner and a Guggenheim Fellow in Playwriting.
Bill T. Jones (Choreographer) is the artistic director/co-founder of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and founding artistic director of New York Live Arts. He is the recipient of the 2014 Doris Duke Award; the 2013 Presidential Medal of the Arts, the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors; Tony Awards for Best Choreography for FELA! and Spring Awakening; Obie Award and Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation Callaway Award for his choreography for Spring Awakening; the 2010 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award; the 2007 USA Eileen Harris Norton Fellowship; the 2006 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreography for The Seven; the 2005 Wexner Prize; the 2005 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement; the 2005 Harlem Renaissance Award; the 2003 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize; and the 1994 MacArthur “Genius” Award. In 2010, Bill T. Jones was recognized as Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, and in 2000, the Dance Heritage Coalition named Mr. Jones “An Irreplaceable Dance Treasure.”
Graciela Daniele (Additional Musical Staging) has earned 10 Tony Award nominations and six Drama Desk nominations. Her Broadway Director/ Choreographic credits include Chita Rivera, The Dancer’s Life, Annie Get Your Gun, Marie Christine, Once on This Island, Chronicle of a Death Foretold and Dangerous Game. Directed and choreographed Michael John LaChiusa’s Hello Again and Marie Christine and Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s Dessa Rose and The Glorious Ones (Lincoln Center). She has Musical Staged/ Choreographed Ragtime (Astaire, Ovation [L.A.], NAACP, and Callaway Award), The Goodbye Girl, Zorba with Anthony Quinn, The Rink starring Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. She choreographed the New York Shakespeare Festival’s The Pirates of Penzance on Broadway, Los Angeles and London, the motion picture of Pirates, and three Woody Allen films including Mighty Aphrodite (1996 Fosse Award), and Everyone Say I Love You (1997 Fosse Award). Ms. Daniele directed and choreographed A New Brain at Lincoln Center Theatre. She is recipient of the 1998 “Mr. Abbott” Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Director/Choreographer. Ms. Daniele directed and choreographed the Michael John LaChuisa’s Little Fish (Second Stage) and Bernarda Alba (Lincoln Center Theatre) along with the Lincoln Center Theatre production of William Finn’s Elegies, A Song Cycle. Most recently, she has choreographed The Visit on Broadway. Upcoming: The Gardens of Anuncia (Old Globe). She is a member of the Theater Hall of Fame.
Christina Anderson (Book) is a playwright, tv writer, educator, and creative. Her plays have appeared at The Goodman Theatre, OSF, The Public Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Kansas City Rep, and other theaters in the United States and Canada. Awards and honors include: 2020 United States Artists Fellow, MacDowell Fellowship, Lily Awards Harper Lee Prize, Herb Alpert Award nomination, Barrymore Nomination, and New Dramatists Residency. Her work has appeared multiple times on the annual Kilroy’s List, an industry survey of excellent new works by female playwrights. She is also the winner of the Lucille Lortel Fellowship. Christina’s plays include: How to Catch Creation; The Ripple, The Wave That Carried Me Home; Man In Love; pen/man/ship; The Ashes Under Gait City; and Blacktop Sky. She taught playwriting at Wesleyan University, Rutgers University, SUNY Purchase College, and served as the interim Head of Playwriting at Brown University. Christina worked as a television staff writer on the CBS drama, “Tommy.” Current projects include: producing an album of instrumental hip hop music titled The Montage Flow, and writing her first tv pilot “The Only Isaac.”
Marcus Gardley (Book) is a proud Bay Area-born playwright-poet whom The New Yorker calls “the heir to Garcia Lorca, Pirandello and Tennessee Williams.” He received a 2019 Obie Award for his play The House That Will Not Stand and is the recipient of the 2019 Doris Duke Artist Award. His play X or The Nation V. Betty Shabazz was a New York Times Critic’s Pick and was remounted Off-Broadway in the spring of 2018. He is a 2019 Library Laureate of San Francisco, the recipient of the 2018 Guiding Light Award presented by California Shakespeare Theater, and won the 2017 Special Citation Theater Award for his play black odyssey, which swept the Theatre Bay Area Awards, garnering six other prizes including Best Production. He is the 2013 USA James Baldwin Fellow and the 2011 PEN Laura Pels Award winner for Mid-Career Playwright. He wrote the screenplay for The Color Purple musical feature film and What’s Going On, a biopic about Marvin Gaye produced by Dr. Dre. Currently, Gardley is developing several tv projects for Amazon studios and writing a musical about Jean-Michel Basquiat with music composed by Jon Batiste.
Craig Lucas (Book). Plays include Missing Persons, Reckless, Blue Window, Prelude to a Kiss, God’s Heart, The Dying Gaul, Stranger, Small Tragedy, The Singing Forest, Ode To Joy, I Was Most Alive With You. Screenplays include Longtime Companion (Sundance Audience Award), The Secret Lives of Dentists (NY Film Critics Best Screenplay Award), Reckless, Blue Window, The Dying Gaul. Libretti include The Light in the Piazza, Two Boys, Orpheus in Love, 3 Postcards, An American in Paris, Amélie, Sousatzka. He directed the world premiere of The Light in the Piazza, Harry Kondoleon’s plays Saved Or Destroyed and Play Yourself, and the films The Dying Gaul and Birds of America. He received the Excellence in Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, the Laura Pels/PEN Mid-career Award, the Greenfield Prize, LAMBDA Literary Award, Hull-Warriner Award, Flora Roberts Award, Steinberg/ACTA Best Play Award among others. He has three Tony nominations and three Obie Awards.
Larry Kirwan (Book, Music, Lyrics, Conceiver) was born in Wexford, Ireland and lives in New York City. He was leader of Black 47 for 25 years during which the political rock band played 2,500 gigs, released 16 albums and appeared on Leno, Letterman, O’Brien, Fallon and every major US TV show. He has written three novels including Liverpool Fantasy and Rockin’ The Bronx, a memoir, Green Suede Shoes and A History of Irish Music. His latest novel Rockaway Blue was recently published by Cornell U. Press. He has written or collaborated on 19 plays and musicals including Paradise Square which began at the cell in Manhattan as Hard Times (produced by Nancy Manocherian, directed by Kira Simring). He collaborated with Thomas Keneally (Schindler’s List) on the musical Transport for which he wrote music and lyrics. It was produced at The Irish Repertory Theatre (directed by Tony Walton). His political thriller Rebel in the Soul was also produced at “The Rep.” He is currently adapting The Informer for stage. A political activist, he is an Irish Echo columnist and celebrity host of Celtic Crush on SiriusXM Satellite Radio. He was president of Irish American Writers & Artists for five years.
Jason Howland ((Music/Music Director/Music Supervisor/Orchestrator/Arranger), an honors graduate of Williams College, is a Grammy Award-winning producer, Emmy Award-winning arranger, and Tony-nominated producer. Composer: the Tony-nominated Little Women – The Musical, Paradise Square (world premiere, Berkeley Rep), Ikiru for Horipro Productions (world premiere, Tokyo), Last Days of Summer (Kansas City Rep, George St. Playhouse) and the streaming hit, A Killer Party. Upcoming: Captain Nemo in Seoul, Tokyo Love Story in Tokyo. Howland won an Emmy in 2007 for “Handel’s Messiah Rocks” for PBS. He was nominated for a Tony in 1999 for co-producing The Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh. He won a Grammy in 2015 for producing the Original Cast Album of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. He is the Arranger and Music Supervisor for Beautiful (Broadway, West End, US National Tour, Tokyo, Australian National Tour, UK National Tour). As musical supervisor/director/conductor and arranger: Broadway’s Bonnie and Clyde, Wonderland, Jekyll & Hyde, Les Miserables, The Civil War, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Boy George’s Taboo and guest conductor for Bono and The Edge’s Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark. He has worked around the world as Music Supervisor, Orchestrator and Arranger for Death Note (Horipro/Tokyo), Mata Hari and The Man Who Laughs for EMK in Seoul, Your Lie in April for Toho Japan, Fist of the North Star (Horipro) and Casanova for Vienna’s VBW. Recording projects also include: Japanese star May’n’s latest album, Megumi Hamada’s solo CD Attitude (Producer, arranger, conductor); the Grammy-nominated cast album of Jekyll & Hyde (Musical Director/Conductor/Vocal Arranger); The Dreams in You for the September 11th Fund (Producer, Composer); The Scarlet Pimpernel (OBC; Associate Producer/Additional Arrangements); Atlantic Records’ release of The Civil War (Choral Conductor, Arranger); Jekyll & Hyde: The Complete Work (Vocal Arranger); the solo album for acclaimed international harpist Jung Kwak (Conductor); and Linda Eder’s albums Christmas Stays the Same and It’s Time (Arranger/Pianist/Vocal Arranger).
Nathan Tysen (Lyrics). West End: Amélie (Olivier & Grammy Nominations). Broadway: Amélie, Tuck Everlasting. Off-Broadway: The Burnt Part Boys, Fugitive Songs, Stars of David. Regional: Paradise Square, Dreamland (or a musical riff on Shakespeare’s Midsummer set during the declassification of Area 51), Stillwater, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick and two circuses for Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey. TV/Film: A Killer Party, “Sesame Street,” “Elmo’s World,” and “The Electric Company.” Awards from the Kleban, Ebb, Rodgers, and Larson Foundations. Writer and director for Lovewell Institute, creating original musicals with young adults. MFA NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, BFA Missouri State Univ. Husband to writer Kait Kerrigan, father to Lucy and Tess. www.nathantysen.com
Masi Asare (Lyrics). is a composer, lyricist, and playwright. Her shows include: The Family Resemblance (book/music/lyrics, commissioned by Theatre Royal Stratford East, developed Eugene O’Neill Center); the musical adaptation of Mira Nair’s film Monsoon Wedding (lyrics), slated to tour internationally in 2022; Mirror Of Most Value (Concord/Samuel French), a one-act play for Marvel about teen super hero Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel, featured on “Marvel’s 616” (Disney+); the spy musical Sympathy Jones (music/lyrics/concept, published by Playscripts with nearly 50 productions to date); and commissions from Barbara Whitman/Grove Entertainment and Victory Gardens Theatre/Toulmin Foundation. A past Dramatists Guild Fellow, Masi won the inaugural Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award for a woman composer of musicals, as well as awards for composition and lyrics from the O’Neill Center, a Theater Hall of Fame Emerging Artist Grant, and the Stacey Mindich “Go Write A Musical” Lilly Award. An advisory board member for Maestra Music, she holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard and a PhD from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in performance studies. She is assistant professor of theatre at Northwestern University. https://masiasare.com
Garth H. Drabinsky (Producer) is the only Canadian to have achieved international success in almost every facet of the entertainment business. His Broadway productions include Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993 Tony Award, Best Musical), the Hal Prince restoration of Show Boat (1995 Tony Award, Best Revival of a Musical), Candide, Barrymore, Fosse (1999 Tony Award, Best Musical), and the internationally acclaimed Ragtime. Mr. Drabinsky’s productions have collectively won 19 Tony Awards (out of 61 nominations). Mr. Drabinsky was also responsible for the Canadian productions of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard and The Phantom of the Opera, which remains the longest running musical in Canadian history, and the North American production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, starring Donny Osmond. Other works originally developed by Mr. Drabinsky but subsequently staged on Broadway by different producing entities include Parade, Sweet Smell of Success and Seussical. In addition to developing state-of-the-art legitimate theatres in both Toronto and Vancouver, Mr. Drabinsky has been devoted to the restoration and historic preservation of North America’s most acclaimed theatres, including the Pantages in Toronto, the Lyric and Apollo Theatres in New York and the Oriental (now Nederlander) Theater in Chicago. A recipient of two Honorary Doctorate Degrees, Garth Drabinsky is an ardent spokesman on behalf of individual liberty.
Peter LeDonne (Co-Producer). A successful advertising/marketing executive, LeDonne was owner of one of the world’s most prominent entertainment marketing firms, Ash/LeDonne. He completely redefined theatrical advertising by making the first live action television commercial for a Broadway musical (Pippin). He has written, produced, and directed literally hundreds of radio and television commercials for theatre, movies, hotels, casinos, sports venues, and major rock and pop stars, including Frank Sinatra. He is the recipient of many industry honors, including the Clio and International Broadcasting Award. LeDonne and producing partner and wife, Kellie, own Stonybrook Productions. With Steve Kalafer, they have made several documentary films, which have won honors at film festivals, been nominated for Academy Awards, and aired on HBO, Cinemax, and PBS.
Allen Moyer (Scenic Design). Broadway credits include: The Lyons, Lysistrata Jones, Grey Gardens (Tony and Drama Desk Nominations, Henry Hewes Award), Thurgood, The Little Dog Laughed, The Constant Wife, Twelve Angry Men. Off-Broadway credits include: Log Cabin (Playwright’s Horizons), Giant (The Public Theater) and four seasons of Encores! (New York City Center). Extensive opera credits include Orfeo ed Euridice for the Metropolitan Opera and productions for New York City Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Canadian Opera Company, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, Washington National Opera and Opera Theater of St. Louis. Also, Romeo and Juliet; On Motifs of Shakespeare (with the Mark Morris Dance Group), and Paradise Square (Berkeley Rep).
Toni-Leslie James (Costume Design). Broadway: Bernhardt/Hamlet; Come From Away; August Wilson’s Jitney; Amazing Grace; Lucky Guy; The Scottsboro Boys; Finian’s Rainbow; Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life; Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; King Hedley II; One Mo’ Time; The Wild Party; Marie Christine; Footloose; The Tempest; Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; Angels in America: Millennium Approaches & Perestroika; Chronicle of a Death Foretold; and Jelly’s Last Jam. Off-Broadway: The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Second Stage, Soho Rep, Lincoln Center Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Manhattan Theatre Club, and the Roundabout Theatre, among others. Regional: Berkeley Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Steppenwolf, Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, the Old Globe, Mark Taper Forum, Arena Stage, Cleveland Playhouse, Cincinnati Playhouse, Seattle Rep, and internationally on the West End in the UK. She has 38 costume design nominations and awards for her contributions to various theatrical productions, including two Tony Award nominations, five Drama Desk nominations, two Hewes Design Awards, the Irene Sharaff Young Masters Award for Costume Design Excellence, and an Obie Award for Sustained Costume Design Excellence.
Donald Holder (Lighting Design) has worked extensively in Theatre, Opera, Dance, Architectural and Television lighting in the US and abroad for over 30 years. He has designed 58 Broadway productions and has been nominated for 13 Tony Awards, winning the Tony for Best Lighting Design for The Lion King in 1998, and for the 2008 revival of South Pacific. Recent Broadway productions include: Tootsie, Kiss Me Kate, Anastasia, Oslo, Straight White Men, She Loves Me, Fiddler on the Roof, The King and I, On the Twentieth Century, ‘The Bridges of Madison County, Bullets Over Broadway and many others. Projects at the NY Metropolitan Opera include Rigoletto (2022), Porgy and Bess, Samson et Delilah, Otello, The Magic Flute and the premiere of Two Boys. He has worked at most of the nation’s leading resident theatres and has designed over 100 Off Broadway productions. His television/film work includes the theatrical lighting for two seasons of “Smash” (NBC – Dreamworks), Oceans 8 (Warner Brothers Pictures), “The Bad Witch” (HBO Max), and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon). Mr. Holder is an Associate Professor and head of the lighting program at Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts.
Jon Weston (Sound Design). Paris and West End: An American in Paris. West End: Thoroughly Modern Millie; Rent; The Who’s Tommy. Broadway design credits include: Prince of Broadway; She Loves Me; Amazing Grace; An American in Paris; On the 20th Century; You Can’t Take It With You; The Bridges of Madison County; How to Succeed in Business…; The Color Purple; Caroline, or Change; Nine; The Green Bird; Thoroughly Modern Millie. Off Broadway and Regional: Paradise Square (Berkeley Rep); Unmasked: The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber (Papermill Playhouse); Footloose (Kennedy Center); Scotland, PA (Roundabout); Evita (Bay Street); Grey Gardens (Bay Street); The Last Five Years (Second Stage); Death Takes a Holiday (Roundabout); Parade (Mark Taper Forum); Family Guy, Live! (Carnegie Hall).
Wendall K. Harrington (Projections). Broadway: All The Way, Driving Miss Daisy, Grey Gardens, They’re Playing Our Song, The Elephant Man, My One and Only, The Heidi Chronicles, The Will Rogers Follies, Having Our Say, Company, Racing Demon, Ragtime, John Leguizamo’s Freak, The Capeman, Putting It Together and The Who’s Tommy. Off Broadway: Sunday in the Park with George, Angels in America, Hapgood, Merrily We Roll Along (four times!) and Whistle Down the Wind. Opera: Werther at the MET, Julie Taymor’s The Magic Flute in Florence, Italy, A View from the Bridge at Chicago Lyric, Die Gezeichhneten at LA Opera, The Photographer at BAM, Transatlatic, The Grapes of Wrath, Rusalka for Minnesota Opera, Nixon in China for OTSL. Ballet: The Fairy’s Kiss, Pictures at an Exhibition, Anna Karenina, Firebird, Cinderella and Opera for Alexei Ratmansky, Othello for Lar Lubovich, Ballet Mechanique for Doug Varone, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Nutcraker and The Firebird for Miami City Ballet, Sylvia for Houston Ballet. Concerts: The Talking Heads “Stop Making Sense,” Pete Townshend’s “Psychoderelict,” as well as tours for Chris Rock and Simon and Garfunkel. Recipient of the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the American Theatre Wing Award, the TCI Award for Technical Achievement and the OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence of Projections, the Michael Merrit Award for collaboration, Ruth Morley Women in Design Award, USITT Education and Digital technology awards and Lifetime Recognition from the Knights of Illumination. As design director of Esquire magazine, Ms. Harrington was responsible for the re-design and re-launch of the “Men’s Magazine of the 90’s.” Later, as editor-at-large for Esquire, she conceived and edited Randy Shilts’s “My Life on the AIDS Tour,” nominated for a National Magazine Award and published in Best American Essays of 1990. Ms. Harrington has been lecturing on Projection Design for Theatre since the early 90’s and is the head of the Projection Design Concentration at the Yale School of Drama.
Gregory Meeh (Special Effects) designs special effects for theatre, opera and film. Credits: Kà, Cirque du Soleil. Broadway: An Act of God, Misery, Doctor Zhivago, The Last Ship, The Addams Family, Spamalot, Twelfth Night (Lincoln Center, Eddy Award), An Inspector Calls (Drama Desk Award), The Phantom of the Opera.
Matthew B. Armentrout (Hair/Wig Design) is beyond thrilled to be revisiting Paradise Square, cast and creatives! Upcoming productions Flying Over Sunset (LCT), The Visitor (The Public), Sing Street, Birthday Candles, Come From Away (Live Capture). Broadway: Bernhardt/Hamlet, The Sound Inside (Hair Consultant). Off-Broadway: Merrily We Roll Along (Roundabout). National Tour: Jitney. Regional: A Raisin in the Sun (Yale Rep), Bliss! (The 5th Avenue), Paradise Square (Berkeley Rep).
Garrett Coleman & Jason Oremus (Irish & Hammerstep Choreography) are co-founders of Hammerstep, an award-winning dance and production company based in NYC. The original Hammerstep dance form fuses formerly rebellious movement disciplines, including Irish dance, tap, hip hop, stepping, and martial arts. The company specializes in live theatrical shows, film and video content, community engagement, and site-specific immersive experiences in a mission to challenge how dance is presented and to create space for different cultures to engage in rhythmic dialogue. Hammerstep has toured worldwide to international acclaim, from community work with orphans in South Africa to one ofthe top 10 most successful viral flash mobs of all time in Sydney, Australia, to the stages of London’s Palace Theatre and NYC’s Lincoln Center, to the cameras of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent.” Hammerstep’s latest endeavor is a sci-fi immersive theatre drama called Indigo Grey, told through a choice-based narrative and a unique blend of live performance and interactive technology. While developing the project, Hammerstep recently completed dual artist-in-residencies at the New Museum and at the Nobel Prize-winning Nokia Bell Labs, released an award-winning short film, Indigo Grey: The Passage, and produced a 2018 sold-out run at Mana Contemporary Museum. hammerstep.com.
Talli Jackson (Associate Choreographer) is a choreographer, teacher, and movement artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. His work has been presented at The Milkbar, SAFEhouse Arts, Temescal Art Center, Tisch School for the Arts, ODC, and FABnyc. Talli was a member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company from 2009-2017. During that time, he originated roles in ten evening-length works and was honored to be involved with the re-staging and extensive touring of some of Jones’s and Zane’s pioneering duets, including Monkey Run Road (1979), Blauvelt Mountain (1980) and Valley Cottage (1981). Talli was honored with a Princess Grace Award in dance, in 2013. From 2014 to 2017 he was a lead organizer and teacher for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company Summer Workshop and has been teaching contemporary dance forms nationally and internationally since 2009.
Gelan Lambert (Associate Choreographer). Choreography credits: The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Public Theater, GableStage and Ohio University’s Antony & Cleopatra, Jacob’s Pillow, Stella Adler Studio (Resident Artist), Florida International Univ., City Center Studio, Long Island University, FiveMyles, Gibney Dance and George Faison Firehouse Theater. Performance credits: Fela! (Broadway/Nigeria/World Tour), playing the role of JK (rhythm tapper)/Ogungun; described by Ben Brantley of the New York Times as “the brilliant, tap dance artist sui generis.” A graduate of The Juilliard School BFA, where he was awarded The Martha Hill Prize for excellence in dance artistry and leadership. Other credits: The Martha Graham Dance Company, Sean Curran Company, Fosse (1st National Tour), A Christmas Carol (Madison Square Garden Theater), City Center Encores! Golden Boy, NYC Opera’s Alcina/Turandot, and a featured performer for Jacob’s Pillow Katherine Dunham Tribute, conceived and directed by Reginald Yates. His awards/honors are: Martha Hill Prize from The Juilliard School, Young Arts-1st Place, Presidential Scholar for the Arts, National Society of Arts and Letters-1st Place, Key to the City of North Miami in 2013 and a Jerome Foundation Fellow to Ghana, West Africa. A principal artist and assistant to Reginald Yates. Ayo!
Thulani Davis (Dramaturg) is an interdisciplinary artist and historian, whose work includes poetry, theater works and cultural criticism. Her work as a dramaturg includes Anna Deavere Smith’s Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities, and Twilight Los Angeles, 1992, and foundational work on Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. Davis wrote the libretti for Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, and his Amistad, and many other musical works. Her forthcoming operas are The Little Rock Nine by Bernadette Speach, and Fire Across the Tracks: Tulsa 1921 by Anthony Davis. Her produced plays include: Everybody’s Ruby: Story of a Murder in Florida, The Souls of Black Folk: An Oratorio for Five Actors, the adaptation for George C. Wolfe’s production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and Where the Mississippi Meets the Amazon, with Shange and Jessica Hagedorn. Davis wrote the book and lyrics for The Sojourner Washing Society, A Musical in Gospel & Blues, with Steven Robinson. She has written the scripts for several narrative films, and award-winning documentaries. The author of six books, she has two new works: Nothin but the Music (2020), and The Emancipation Circuit: Black Activism Forging a Culture of Freedom, forthcoming from Duke University Press. She is a professor and a Nellie Y. McKay Fellow in Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Sydné Mahone (Dramaturg) is an independent dramaturg and editor. Commercial credits: Script consultant: King Kong, The Musical, book by Jack Thorne. Broadway, 2018. Dramaturg: King Kong, book by Craig Lucas, Melbourne’s Regent Theatre (world premiere, Broadway tryout), Australia, 2013. Dramaturg: Hard Times, book by Craig Lucas (development of Paradise Square). She is the editor of two books: Moon Marked and Touched by Sun: Plays by African American Women (TCG, 1994); and With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together (William Morrow, 1998). She was an associate professor of Theatre Arts and African American Studies at the University of Iowa, and served as the first director of play development at Crossroads Theatre.
Peter W. Lamb (Production Supervisor) is a Producer, Director, Production Supervisor, Technical Director, Theatre Consultant, with a career spanning 40+ years. Selected credits include: Technical Director and Production Manager at the Stratford Festival and LIVENT Inc.: The Phantom of the Opera (Toronto, Touring); Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Toronto, Touring); Show Boat (Toronto, Broadway, Chicago, Touring); Sunset Boulevard (Toronto, Vancouver) and Ragtime (Toronto, Los Angeles, Broadway, Chicago, Touring). He was also technical consultant and theatre planner for Livent’s renovation-construction projects: The Pantages, Toronto; The Ford Centres for the Performing Arts (TCA), North York and Vancouver; The Ford Center (Lyric) in New York and The Oriental (Nederlander), Chicago. While Principal Consultant at New York-based Artec Consultants Inc, among the performing arts building projects he worked on were: The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia; Orange County Performing Arts Center, Costa Mesa; National Concert Hall, Budapest; Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York; Salle Pleyel,(renovation) Paris; Roy Thomson Hall,(renovation),Toronto and York University, Toronto. In 2003 Peter established PWL Associates, a theatrical production consulting firm whose clients included: Follies for Roundabout Theatre Company (Broadway); Blue Man Group (Panasonic Theatre, Toronto; Venetian Resort, Las Vegas) and The Pirate Queen, River Productions (Chicago, Broadway). In 2007, he joined the new Dancap Productions Inc. as Producer, Executive VP, presenting five subscription seasons of Tony Award-winning musicals across Canada, including co-producing the hit Toronto production of Jersey Boys. From 2012-2016 as Director of Production for the Canadian Opera Company, Peter oversaw Canada’s largest theatre production operation. In 2018-19, he was delighted to be the International Production Supervisor of Paradise Square, receiving its world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
Stewart/Whitley (Casting). Duncan Stewart CSA & Benton Whitley CSA, with Joey Montenarello CSA, Luke Schaffer, Micah Johnson-Levy, & Joseph Hayes. Broadway/NY: Hadestown, Chicago The Musical, The Lightning Thief, Rock of Ages, The Great Comet, Elf, On The Town, Pippin, La Cage Aux Folles, Radio City Christmas Spectacular; TV/Film: Netflix, 20th Century Fox, NBC, Lionsgate, Disney Channel; West End/UK: Hadestown, Thriller Live, Menier Chocolate Factory, West Side Story; Current Tours: Hadestown, Hairspray, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Waitress, The Sound of Music; Regional: American Repertory Theater, LaJolla Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, Alley Theatre, Bay Street, Goodspeed, For The Record, TUTS, Hollywood Bowl, RCCL. Artios Award Winning Office. Members of The Casting Society of America. Follow: @stewartwhitley & stewartwhitley.com
Tags: featured, Paradise Square
