PARADISE SQUARE reviews

So well said Dan6. The most important thing is to ensure that cast and crew keep working. This not about deep pocketed producers who will move on regardless of the outcome. The issue will be if the outcome is mixed reviews. Mixed reviews mean you have to spend a million bucks or more stimulating demand and twisting mixed reviews to appear positive. Not an easy task and does not work unless you have a show that fans already love.

It's their opinion. Feel free to have another.

JBroadway said: "I predict they won't have any trouble finding workable pull-quotes. Seems like even many of the dissenters agree that there are aspects of the show that work - the critics will likely praise those aspects, and the pull-quotes will pull themselves."

You can pull all day long, ticket buyers will decide this show's fate , not a publicist doing a deep dive for superlatives

Then what takes the Broadhurst?

EDSOSLO858 said: "Things could get reeeeeeeally interesting these next few hours... will we be reading actual reviews tonight, or will they just be multi-paragraph anti-Drab*nsky rants?


the reviews will be exactly what the show deserves. If bad, Drabinsky will claim it's about him. If they are raves, he will glory grab. Either way, no demand, no word of mouth, no future


"

Three out of five stars from TimeOut:

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/paradise-square-broadway-musical-review-joaquina-kalukango

Four out of four stars from NY Stage Review, with special praise for Kalukango and Jones:

http://nystagereview.com/2022/04/03/paradise-square-allies-and-rivals-in-song-and-dance/

Updated On: 4/3/22 at 07:59 PM

Jesse Green loved the dancing and Joaquina, but not much else:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/03/theater/paradise-square-review.html

NY Daily News is mixed (but says it's been improved since Chicago):

REVIEW: Fraught with America’s strife, the new Broadway musical ‘Paradise Square’ gives its all

https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/broadway/ny-broadway-paradise-square-review-20220404-x45i42a355cebh7sphgimy22nu-story.html

Megamusicals have rarely, if ever, gotten great reviews from the jump, and I suspect this one will be no different. Is this the next Phantom or Les Miserables? No, but as far as these things go, it’s a pretty excellent example of the form: a rousing throwback to old-fashioned American entertainment, cobbled together from strange, disparate sources but somehow, somehow still going.

https://www.theatrely.com/post/an-unsteady-home-in-paradise-square-review

TheatreMania gives it a thumbs down: the most positive parts are Kalukango and the dancing, but otherwise they say the show "over promises and under delivers" and it "feels more packed than a Cow Bay flophouse."

https://www.theatermania.com/broadway/reviews/review-broadway-paradise-square-five-points_93598.html

These reviews will sell no tickets. Indifference is deadly.

In the hands of a team that actually knew how to advertise a show –– and had the budget to do so –– there are enough isolated pull-quotes to sell tickets. But I think its fate is set in stone now. The core audience which reads the NYT is unlikely to view one actor's performance as reason enough to attend.

I guess the big question now is if it has enough money in the bank to limp through to the Tony nominations (one month from today) or if it will close before then. Being that the show is unlikely to get a Best Musical nomination (the only real money category), its smattering of lesser noms like Actress, Choreography, and possibly Score will not make a dent, financially speaking.

Updated On: 4/3/22 at 08:44 PM

Auggie27 said: "Worth noting, too: the posts here landed on about 90% of the review content. This isn't some shocking, unexpected thud, but more in keeping with the Chicago reviews and again, thoughtful social media critique."

Correct.

I do wonder if 6-9 months between the Chicago and Broadway runs would have made a big difference. Broadway rehearsals began about 2 months after they closed in Chicago, and considering a number of songs were replaced, who knows what could have been done with more time (and, of course...more money). It was probably never going to hit the heights of RAGTIME, but it might have been an opportunity to reexamine the ad campaign and other promotional strategies in addition to the onstage material. C'est la vie.