Red Summer

Red Summer

 

A modern musical crafted by MPAACT co-founders Shepsu Aakhu and Shawn Wallace, along with Andrew White, a co-founder of Lookingglass Theatre Company… Red Summer is a large canvas upon which is painted an epic moment in Chicago History. 

Set during riots of 1919, our story centers on two soldiers—one black, one white—who return from the battlefields of Europe only to find themselves caught in the violence of a city that is struggling to accommodate the Great Migration, a global pandemic, the return of war veterans, a downturn in the economy, and long-standing ethnic tensions. Having fought on the same side in “The Great War,” they are now pitted against each other as their friends, family, and neighbors wage block-by-block warfare, and the city’s ethnic enclaves rage and burn.

Support for the development of Red Summer was provided, in part, by Chicago Performance Lab through Theater and Performance Studies in the Logan Center at the University of Chicago and Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre in Evanston, IL. 

Red Summer is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional contributions from the Illinois Arts Council and the Crane Group
Red Summer is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency

Educational Resources and Links

 

• 1919 by Eve L. Ewing
• America's Racial Karma: An Invitation to Heal by Larry Ward, PhD

 

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