The new musical was an unsuccessful comeback attempt by the storied producer Garth H. Drabinsky.
“Paradise Square,” a dance-rich Broadway musical about race relations in Civil War-era New York City, will close Sunday, after weeks trying to overcome persistently soft sales.
The musical, which began previews March 15 and opened April 3, was an unsuccessful comeback attempt by the storied producer Garth H. Drabinsky, who after winning three Tony Awards in the 1990s was convicted of fraud in Canada and served time there.The show, set in Lower Manhattan in 1863, is about a low-income neighborhood in which African Americans and Irish immigrants formed a community that was upended by the Civil War draft riots. The musical is big, with a large cast and lots of production numbers, and won praise for the central performance, by Joaquina Kalukango, as well as for the choreography, by Bill T. Jones and others.
It was nominated for 10 Tony Awards, but won just one, for Kalukango. Her rousing performance at the Tony Awards of the show’s 11 o’clock number, “Let It Burn,” was well received, but the night did not translate to enough ticket sales to keep the show alive.
“We wanted to give ‘Paradise Square’ every chance to succeed, but various challenges proved insurmountable,” Drabinsky said in announcing the closure.
The show has had a long and complicated history. It started, a decade ago, as “Hard Times,” by Larry Kirwan of the band Black 47, and the early productions, at the Cell in New York, relied heavily on the music and life story of Stephen Foster, the 19th-century songwriter.
In the years since, with Drabinsky at the helm, it has repeatedly changed book writers and expanded other parts of its creative team; it also moved further and further from Foster’s music and biography. Before Broadway, there was a production at the nonprofit Berkeley Repertory Theater in California, and a commercial run in Chicago; neither was especially well-received, but the production pressed on, convinced that word-of-mouth would be strong.
The Broadway production was unable to break through during a competitive season, with tourism still down because of the coronavirus pandemic, and a raft of new shows all seeking attention. “Paradise Square,” with an unfamiliar title, a non-famous cast, and middling reviews, was unable to find its footing; it has consistently sold far less than other Broadway musicals and far less than it needed to sell to pay for its weekly running costs; during the week ending June 5, it grossed a paltry $229,337 and played to houses that were only 59 percent full.
The musical was capitalized for up to $15 million, according to a recently updated filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That money will be lost.
Source: Theater - nytimes.com
