PARADISE SQUARE’s Joaquina Kalukango Wins 2022 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical

Joaquina Kalukango has won the 2022 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical for PARADISE SQUARE.

Joaquina Kalukango received a 2020 Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play for her performance as Kaneisha in the critically acclaimed Broadway production of Slave Play. For that production, she also received an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Actress and Broadway.com listed her as one of the top five performers (male or female) of the year.

Joaquina is a 2021 SAG Award nominee for Cast in a Motion Picture for her role as Betty X opposite Kingsley Ben-Adir in Regina King’s directorial debut, “One Night in Miami.” Additionally, she recently recurred on the HBO series, “Lovecraft Country.” Other TV credits include Ava DuVernay’s Netflix series, “When They See Us,” and “Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia,” directed by Kenny Leon. Recent Broadway credits include: The Color Purple, Holler If Ya Hear Me and Godspell.

New York City. 1863. The Civil War raged on. An extraordinary thing occurred amid the dangerous streets and crumbling tenement houses of the Five Points, the notorious 19th-century Lower Manhattan slum. Irish immigrants escaping the devastation of the Great Famine settled alongside free-born Black Americans and those who escaped slavery, arriving by means of the Underground Railroad. The Irish, relegated at that time to the lowest rung of America’s social status, received a sympathetic welcome from their Black neighbors (who enjoyed only slightly better treatment in the burgeoning industrial-era city). The two communities co-existed, intermarried, raised families, and shared their cultures in this unlikeliest of neighborhoods.