Paradise Square - Broadway Creative Team

Christina Anderson 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 ... read more Matthew B. Armentrout 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). ... read more MASI ASARE is a composer, lyricist, and playwright. Shows include: THE FAMILY RESEMBLANCE (book/music/lyrics; Theatre Royal Stratford East commission, Eugene O’Neill Center); a new musical about a story of racial passing (book/music/lyrics) commissioned by Barbara Whitman/Grove Entertainment; the new musical adaptation of Mira Nair’s film MONSOON WEDDING (lyrics); a one-act play about Ms. Marvel MIRROR OF MOST VALUE (Marvel/Samuel French); a new musical commissioned by Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theatre/Toulmin Foundation; and spy musical SYMPATHY JONES (music/lyrics/concept; NYMF; Playscripts). A past Dramatists Guild Fellow, Masi won the Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award for a woman composer of musicals, both the Holof Lyricist ... read more Garrett Coleman is a two-time solo World Champion in Irish dance and has won 17 other national and international titles. In addition to Irish Step, he has trained in hip hop, tap, African stepping, contemporary movement, and martial arts. Garrett toured professionally with Riverdance, Trinity Irish Dance Company, Cherish the Ladies, The Chieftains, and others. He performed at the Kennedy Center in 2006 as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts, is a Young Arts award winner (top 2% of artistic talent in the U.S.), and has twice been named one of the “Top 100 Irish Americans” by Irish America Magazine. ... read more Graciela Daniele 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. She 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 ... read more Thulani Davis 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 ... read more Marcus Gardley 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 ... read more 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, ... read more Donald Holder 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 ... read more Howland was born June 16, 1971, in Concord, Massachusetts, and grew up in Williamstown, Massachusetts. As a teenager, he attended Berkshire Ensemble for the Theatre Arts (a camp for aspiring musical-theatre composers and librettists). While at Williams College, he was called to be an intern on the 1992 Vivian Matalon workshop of Jekyll & Hyde and worked his way up, becoming friendly with both composer Frank Wildhorn and arranger James Raitt, and eventually became the music director and conductor of the 1997 Broadway production. In 2002, Howland wrote a play with Larry Pellegrini called Blessing in Disguise which premiered Off-Broadway. His assorted ... read more Talli Jackson s 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 ... read more Larry Kirwan 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 ... read more Gelan Lambert is an American actor, singer, and dancer who has made a name for himself in the world of Broadway. Born and raised in New York City, Lambert developed a love for the performing arts at a young age and began pursuing his dreams of becoming a professional actor shortly after graduating from high school. Lambert's first major break came when he landed a role in the Broadway production of "The Lion King". He played the part of a hyena and quickly became known for his energetic and dynamic performances. Lambert's talent and dedication to his craft did not go ... read more 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 ... read more Sydné Mahone 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 ... read more Gregory Meeh 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. ... read more 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 (Playwrights 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 ... read more Former lead of Riverdance, co-creator of the award-winning dance company Hammerstep, and five-time national Irish dance champion, Jason is a multidisciplinary creative whose work has been featured in Rolling Stone, Billboard, Dance Magazine, and Wired magazine. Originally from Sydney, Australia, Jason’s breakout performance role was with Riverdance as principal lead dancer, a tenure that spanned over 40 countries and venues such as London’s Hammersmith Apollo, Palais des Congrès de Paris, and The Kremlin State Palace in Moscow. Jason has produced and starred in international Hammerstep appearances at New York City's Lincoln Center, The Palace Theatre on London’s West End, and ... read more 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 ... read more