I am first guitar chair 6 nights a week, Tuesday through Sunday, with afternoon matinees on Saturday and Sunday. This beautiful musical is at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

Find tickets at https://tickets.berkeleyrep.org

Obie Award-winning director Moisés Kaufman ("The Laramie Project" and "Master Class"), award-winning playwrights Marcus Gardley ("The House that will not Stand") and Craig Lucas ("Amélie"), and lyricist Nathan Tysen ("Amélie") return to Berkeley Rep along with Tony Award-winning choreographer Bill T. Jones to bring you this incredible musical based on extraordinary real-life stories. It’s 1863 and in a 20-block area of Manhattan known as the Five Points, Black and Irish Americans live side by side, work together, marry, and for a brief period realize racial harmony. However, the intensifying Civil War soon results in the first-ever Federal draft, leading to riots as whites are called to enlist while blacks are barred from serving. Will the hard-won bonds of friendship, community, and family in the Five Points prevail or be severed forever? Calling upon a variety of musical and dance traditions including Irish step-dancing and African traditional forms (Juba dancing), as well as new ones created from their fusion (tap dance), Paradise Square subverts and reframes some of the most popular music of the 19th century while honoring and celebrating this unique neighborhood’s diverse inhabitants, whose passionate, moving, and heartbreaking experiences burn in our imaginations today.