The origin story

Novelist, playwright, and musician Larry Kirwan reimagined the music of America’s first great songwriter, Stephen Foster, when he dreamed up a musical about Foster’s time in New York City’s Five Points neighborhood. In Five Points, known as the slum of America, a short-lived alliance between newly arrived Irish immigrants and free Blacks created a melting pot of identities. A version of the piece ran off Broadway in an intimate theatre that transformed into the show’s saloon, with tattered flags hanging and burlap draped along the walls to evoke the feel of 1863.

Producer Garth Drabinsky was excited by Larry’s concept and Larry sold him the rights to the musical. Garth began developing the Five Points story nearly six years ago, aiming to take it to the next level by securing financial support for the project, hiring members of the creative team, and supervising the musical’s evolution on its path to production. Often, a producer will seek to collaborate with a nonprofit theatre like Berkeley Rep as a partner in developing the work. Members of the creative team reached out to Artistic Director Tony Taccone, whose interest in the story of Five Points and the artists behind it sparked a collaborative partnership.

Tony admired the artists creating Paradise Square: Moisés Kaufman, the director of Berkeley Rep’s productions of The Laramie Project and Master Class; Nathan Tysen, the lyricist of Amélie; Jason Howland, the musical arranger and orchestrator behind Beautiful: The Carol King Musical; and the famed choreographer Bill T. Jones. The musical continued to evolve from rewrite to rewrite, and the story deepened, finding its current form as the artistic team cohered. In early 2018, book writer Marcus Gardley, Moisés, Garth, Tony, and dramaturg Thulani Davis gathered to hash out each moment of the play, generating ideas for the next iteration. Later that year, the creative team led separate twoweek and three-week workshops, both in Toronto, to rehearse new text and test staging and choreography. The next stop would be Berkeley Rep.