VIDEO: Get A First Look At Berkeley Rep's PARADISE SQUARE: AN AMERICAN MUSICAL

Check out all new video from Paradise Square: An American Musical. The world premiere is helmed by acclaimed director Moisés Kaufman, with choreography by the legendary Bill T. Jones and a book by Marcus Gardley, Craig Lucas, and Larry Kirwan. Music by Jason Howland and Larry Kirwan, with lyrics by Nathan Tysen, and based on the songs of Stephen Foster.

Paradise Square is produced by special arrangement with Garth H. Drabinsky in association with Peter LeDonne and Teatro Proscenium Limited Partnership.

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 (such as 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.