A NIGHT OF MUSIC, MEMORY, AND MADNESS:
PARADISE FOUND
The Studio Theatre’s Victor Shargai stage has been strikingly transformed into a 1949 jazz club for Paradise Blue, Dominique Morisseau’s haunting and lyrical drama. Director Raymond O. Caldwell’s bold concept places the audience right inside the Paradise Jazz Club of Black Bottom, Detroit — immersing us not just in the story, but in its emotional landscape. The set design by Lawrence E. Moten III is more of an architecture construction because it’s literally the walls, floors, and three different entranceways into the club. Patrons sit at café tables, and characters and musicians drift among them to different points in the space: the bar and a performance stage. It’s a true environmental production: we’re not just watching a play; we’re surrounded by it.
Yet the action itself unfolds in the club’s off-hours, lending a ghostly intimacy to the scenes because technically speaking, an audience is not present. When the setting shifts to a lodger’s quarters upstairs, a red curtain parts in the corner to reveal a new layer of the world. The smooth transitions are subtle, part of a staging that breathes life into every corner, accented perfectly by Keith Parham’s light design using practical lights you’d expect to see in such a space.
When the play premiered Off-Broadway in 2018, it embraced a Film Noir aesthetic: stark lighting, ominous shadows, and a traditional stage divided from the audience. Here in D.C., those barriers are gone. The lights are up, and we’re fully exposed — mere inches from the turmoil. The reimagining of the space by Caldwell and his design team is a triumph of vision and logistics. Few theaters would attempt, let alone pull off, such a radical renovation. For the concept alone, it’s worth catching this triumph.
But vision is only one part of the success. Morisseau’s writing — a hallmark of her Detroit Project trilogy (which also includes Skeleton Crew and Detroit ’67) — is as potent as ever. A deeply human story of pain, aspiration, and resilience, Paradise Blue remains sharply relevant a decade after its debut.
At its heart is Blue (Amari Cheatom), club owner and trumpet player, whose haunted demeanor and volatile outbursts betray a man in crisis. Cheatom’s performance is riveting: his darting eyes and charged silences suggest a psyche unraveling in real time. His past trauma, revealed in fragments, casts a long shadow over the narrative — aided by sound designer Matthew M. Nielson who makes his interior struggle audible.
Silver (Anji White), a glamorous outsider renting a room above the club, is part femme fatale, part change agent, cloaked in mystery and ambition. White plays her with strength and finesse, never letting us forget the vulnerability beneath the polish. Her presence challenges not only Blue, but his loyal girlfriend Pumpkin (Kalen Robinson), a soft-spoken dreamer who finds her voice, strength, and confidence, keeping the club running without recognition. Robinson’s performance is quietly stunning. With warmth and grace, she embodies a woman taught to make herself small, slowly learning to claim space and voice. Pumpkin’s arc—from self-effacing caretaker to someone who dares to choose herself — forms the emotional core of the play. The alarming final moments of the play rest on her shoulders, which she initiates with power and purpose, never to be the same again.
The supporting cast is uniformly strong. Marty Austin Lamar lends a quiet soul to Corn, the gentle pianist who brings both musicality and heart. Ro Boddie as P-Sam explodes with energy and wounded ambition — a man whose dreams are too big for the space he’s been given.
Casting director Katja Zarolinski deserves praise for assembling the perfect, cohesive ensemble, each actor navigating the large, open space with ease. (And a well-dressed cast at that with fetching period costumes by Cidney Forkpah.) Robb Hunter’s close-quarters’ fight choreography adds urgency and realism, a feat made even more impressive by the proximity of the audience.
Two live musicians — bassist Mark Saltman and trumpeter Michael A. Thomas — lend authenticity to the soundscape, the latter doubling as the ghostly presence of Blue’s father. Their music underlines the emotional rhythms of the play with an aching sincerity. (William Knowles is the musical director and composer).
Will Blue sell the club to escape his demons? Can Pumpkin escape Blue’s spiraling violence? Paradise Blue is a richly layered exploration of personal pain, communal legacy, and the toll of gentrification. It’s a story about how history haunts the present — and how, sometimes, the future depends on letting go.
This production is not just a play — it’s an experience. Go for the setting, stay for the story, and leave changed by the beauty and ache of it all.
photos by Margot Schulman
Paradise Blue
Studio Theatre
Victor Shargai Theatre, 1501 14th Street NW in DC
2 hours 30 minutes with an intermission
ends on June 22, 2025
for tickets ($40-$95), visit Studio Theatre
for more shows, visit Theatre in DC
Studio will also hold an Affinity Night for Paradise Blue, with a post-show discussion moderated by Psalmayene 24. Psalm, who directed The Colored Museum and Good Bones in previous Studio seasons and will return to the director’s chair with Purlie Victorious next season, will have a discussion with the artists and actors who brought the Paradise to life. Affinity Nights are a practice introduced to American theatre partially by Paradise Blue playwright Dominique Morisseau herself, as a way to ensure that members of the Black community, whose history is the subject of her play, have an opportunity to see it in an uplifting and communal atmosphere. Affinity Night will be held on June 12.
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Gregory Fletcher is an author, a theater professor, a playwright, director, and stage manager. His craft book on playwriting is entitled Shorts and Briefs, and publishing credits include two YA novels (Other People’s Crazy, and Other People’s Drama), 2 novellas in the series Inclusive Bedtime Stories, 2 short stories in The Night Bazaar series, and several essays. Website, Facebook, Instagram.
