AP Breakthrough Entertainer: Joaquina Kalukango, in paradise

NEW YORK — Winning a Tony Award as best lead actress in a musical cemented Joaquina Kalukango’s place in the Broadway firmament. “I think it was a great moment in my trajectory of owning a new side of myself that I wasn’t that comfortable with sharing for a while.” Kalukango’s show-stopping performance in “Paradise Square” and especially her heart-felt searing second act song “Let It Burn” routinely drew audiences to their feet, a triumph of the 2021-2022 season. On film, she played Betty X opposite Kingsley Ben-Adir in Regina King’s directorial debut, “One Night in Miami.” She also had a recurring role on the HBO series “Lovecraft Country” and appeared in Ava DuVernay’s Netflix series “When They See Us.” “I always felt like I wanted more than anything to be connected to work that kind of shifts the paradigm, that makes people think, that gets people to talk in their communities, that asks questions,” she says. After graduating from The Juilliard School, Kalukango made her Broadway debut as an understudy in “Godspell” and went on to join the ensemble in “Holler if Ya Hear Me,” a musical inspired by Tupac Shakur’s music and as Nettie in the 2015 Broadway revival of “The Color Purple” starring Jennifer Hudson. Kalukango’s breakthrough happened when she landed a part in “Paradise Square” about Irish immigrants and Black Americans jostling to survive in New York City in 1863.