Steven Oxman “Paradise Square,” an ambitious new musical heading to Broadway in March, is a fictionalized historical take on the Five Points area of Manhattan and the social forces leading up to the violent Draft Riots of 1863, where what began as immigrant protests against the Civil War draft turned into violence against the Black population of the city.
The show, now playing its premiere run in Chicago, is a serious and awfully big effort, emerging at a sensitive moment for a theater world that sure could use an explosive new hit, with an abundance of artistic craft onstage deserving of effusive praise and two soaring moments of transporting entertainment.
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