The New Orleans Jazz Museum has partnered with Tulane Summer Lyric Theatre to present a four-night production of the Broadway musical Songs for a New World by Jason Robert Brown. Staged in the courtyard of the museum on June 4, 5, 11 and 12, the musical is connected by a theme—the moment of decision—with a moving collection of songs about life, love and the choices that we make. Polanco Jones Jr. is the director and choreographer of the show.

Jones is an award-winning  international theatrical artist with a passion for creating work that explores contemporary socio-political topics while heightening Black visibility. A New Orleans native, he studied at NOCCA and later earned a bachelor’s degree in theatre with a double concentration in musical theatre performance and dance from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and a master’s degree in museum studies from Southern University in New Orleans. He was named Theatre Person of the Year at the 2020 Big Easy Awards. He spoke with OffBeat about the Summer Lyric production.

“I work at the New Orleans Jazz Museum doing theatrical inclusion for museum innovation. I’m also a part of the AV team. I am currently working at Tulane University as the director and choreographer for Tulane Summer Lyric’s production of Songs for a New World, and I’m also codirecting Jesus Christ Superstar, which will be staged later in the season.

Polanco Jones Jr., photo courtesy of the artist

Initially, when we were working on this summer season for Tulane Summer Lyric, we were at a disadvantage when it came to locations. The Balcony Concert Series here at the museum had been successful and it also offered an opportunity for people to gather in an outdoor space that was large enough during this time of pandemic restrictions. Tulane had really been interested in doing more inclusive programming and they wanted to do community outreach. The museum was also interested in doing more community outreach. And so I was the person sitting in between both institutions and I thought it was a great opportunity to really bring theater to the people and not have people come to the theater. 

With that in mind, I thought it would be a great opportunity to bring theater to the community, to have people that are just passing by witness musical theater and realize that it’s actually something for everyone. You know, lots of times when we think of musical theater, many people think of it as something that’s very stuffy, buttoned all the way up to the top and that it’s only for a specific audience. By putting it in a place that’s more accessible, and a place that already has more swing, because it’s the Jazz Museum, I feel like it gives musical theater a more relaxed approach. It makes musical theater accessible for more people, which is a big part of what I like to do.

I like to make art inclusive and intersectional. Uta Hagen said it best: “Art imitates life.” And life is not black and white. Because of that, I try to implement as many colors into my storytelling and into all of my creative endeavors, including location, making works site-specific or finding places that we would never normally play in and making them a complete playground.

Michael McKelvey is the director at Tulane, and he had a couple of titles on his list and we were going through them. I knew that I would be directing one of the shows, directing and choreographing a show of my own this season. It’s really exciting. I have choreographed many large projects and some international work, but as a director, this will be my, I guess, my directorial debut. I really wanted something that aligned with myself as a creator and my mission, which is to heighten Black visibility and also make sure that I am representing my community accurately. I also wanted something that I felt like spoke to the times that we’re living in while also giving us a breath of hope. I feel like Songs for a New World does that.

In the second song of the show, the role is typically cast as a Black vocalist. I’ve seen it played by other people, but there’s so much more weight to words like “Let me see my son,” “Let me out of here,” “Why am I in this cell?” Those phrases immediately make me think of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela.

There are some songs like “Flag Maker,” which immediately made me think of Betsy Ross and the strength of women. And in that, moving even further down the line, women sitting… Rosa Parks, the strength of that, what does it truly mean to sit in your truth. And the new world that I’m really trying my best to create is one that acknowledges all of the trauma that we’ve experienced from as far back as our journey through slavery and the Middle Passage, the Holocaust, the beating of our trans brothers and sisters, human trafficking. Although what I see first is the oppression of Black people, that’s not the only oppression that I noticed, but I identify with that first because I am a Black man and that’s a large part of my creative process.

So again, for me, it’s about accurate representation, edifying all of these groups that have been at one point or another stepped on, and allowing us to see that there is still hope for tomorrow. In one of the songs, “Christmas Lullaby,” the singer speaks of the hope that’s inside of her. Although I felt like a lot of people play the song as if she’s speaking of pregnancy and new life, it’s much greater than that for me. And what I’ve shared with the actress, it’s the strength of women in general. Women have the ability to sustain and create life. Once life leaves their body, they can still nourish that life.

And it’s those things that represent the hope of the future to me, because we don’t know what that baby will be. That baby holds the potential to change the world. That’s who these songs are for. Everyone that’s come before us, And those that can come and potentially change the world.”

For more information and to purchase tickets for Songs for a New World visit here.