Look At What We Have Created…

Closing Performance

Paradise Square - July 17, 2022

WARNING: Long Post Ahead:

My friend and I starting planning a trip to NYC in May of this year, and decided we would both choose one Broadway show to see while there. I chose Paradise Square and bought tickets in early June. Fast forward to the week before we left, it was announced that Paradise Square was closing the next week - July 17, 2022 at 3pm.

The exact performance we had bought tickets for.

We were going to see the closing of a Broadway show and didn’t even know it.

Witnessing the closing of a Broadway show was truly a remarkable and once in a lifetime experience. It was raw, emotional, energized, buzzing, and the performers truly left it all on the stage. You could see the months, even years of blood, sweat, and tears they had poured into this moment, and it was all coming to a close in a single moment.

The audience was on the edge of their seats their entire show to not miss a moment. Many people gave a standing ovation after every musical number.

After Joaquina Kalukango's emotional performance of her Tony winning number, "Let It Burn", the audience rose to their feet for what felt like 5 minutes, roaring with emotion.

Once she got to the lyrics:

"I Know Why You Have Come Here, What You Want to Erase. But I Know That Our Spirit is Bigger Than this Place. Look At What We Have Created, We Gave Ourselves a Voice..."

she pointed to the ensemble behind her, and those words had a whole new meaning.

The actors tried to start the scene following that number at least 3 different times, to no success because the audience roared louder. She just stood centerstage, taking it all in, stoic, while still staying in character.

The whole cast was in tears by the end of the show. Closing remarks were made by the cast, and then they all split, went offstage, and a single ghost-light was lit onstage.

Being in the room of a closing production brought me back to what theater is all about: the bond of cast-mates, becoming family, the magic of storytelling, putting your all into something you believe in, thinking outside the box, and working together and collaborating to create beautiful art.

May we all be so lucky.