Q&A: Moisés Kaufman reflects on the roots of our divisions

By SIGAL RATNER-ARIAS
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Seven years ago, Moisés Kaufman was approached to direct the Broadway musical “Paradise Square” and, after reading it, he immediately said yes. “I did this show because it spoke to me,” the Venezuelan theater director and playwright says. Now “Paradise Square” — about unity and racism in New York’s famed Five Points neighborhood, where Irish immigrants and Black Americans jostled to survive in 1863 — is nominated to 10 Tony Awards. During a recent interview with The Associated Press, Kaufman, himself an immigrant based in New York City, reflected on immigration and the roots of American divisions.