‘Paradise Square’ Broadway Review: Call Her Madam, or Return of the Happy Hookers

A new musical finds much to admire in the oldest profession

paradise square
Photo: Kevin Berne

You may have to go back to “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” to find a brothel with more kick-up-your-heels fun than what’s now on stage at “Paradise Square.”

It’s doubtful, despite all these dancing prostitutes and their johns, that the Encores! series will have to rewrite this show 50 years from now to make it politically correct. In “Paradise Square,” which opened Sunday at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, those sex workers and their madam, Nelly (Joaquina Kalukango), come bubble-wrapped with enough important issues to placate the most hardened moralist. Nelly isn’t exploiting the women who service the uptown politicians.

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