Prologue from the Artistic Director

My father was a student of history. He loved to make us think about how different our lives might have been if certain battles had been lost, if important legislation hadn’t been passed, if key decisions hadn’t been made. “What if Hitler had decided to invade England in 1942?” he’d ask us. “What if Lincoln had not been able to get the votes for the Thirteenth Amendment or Roosevelt the New Deal?”

He was trying to show us how fragile democracy is, how critical every choice we make, how painstaking the measure of all progress. And conversely, how advanced our society might be if regressive forces had not destroyed certain movements…

The fragility of freedom is on full display in Paradise Square, an exciting new musical that dares to embrace a complicated moment in our nation’s history. The play is set during the Civil War, an unlikely time for the nation’s first experiment in volitional racial integration. But alliances sometimes form in the least likely places, among the least likely tribes. Irish immigrants and African Americans, thrust together in the poverty-stricken, disease-riddled slum known as Five Points in New York City, formed a combustible, passionate relationship expressed in language of every variety, and most exuberantly in music and dance. Spontaneous competitions between the two groups broke out in bars and spilled into the streets. The cross-pollination of high-stepping Irish jigs and African-American shuffles resulted in astonishing combinations that would form the bedrock of tap dance and foreshadow both jazz and rock ’n’ roll. It was an extraordinary cultural melting pot, one that ended when the demands of the war pitted the two sides against each other and which decimated Five Points.

Paradise Square tries to capture the spirit and truth of the people of that time. Using the music and character of Stephen Foster as its rallying cry, it is a seminally American event, reclaiming the struggle embedded in a forgotten part of our history.

This is an important story, and the creative team has applied their formidable talents to do it justice. Led by the intrepid Moisés Kaufman, it includes the luminous choreographer Bill T. Jones, musical savants Larry Kirwan and Jason Howland, and wordsmiths Nathan Tysen, Marcus Gardley, and Craig Lucas. The 32-member cast and eight-piece band make this the biggest show in the history of Berkeley Rep. Master Producer Garth Drabinsky has been the key figure in bringing it to life. Together with our staff of seasoned theatre makers, we once again try to produce theatre that diverges from an easy formula for success. Stretching everyone’s boundaries for the chance to create something special…that’s our thing.

Thanks for being part of it all.

As always,

Tony Taccone