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GSU to stage world premiere of musical about 1919 Chicago race riot

Chicagoland audience members will have the chance to be the first to experience “Red Summer,” a new musical about the 1919 race riot in Chicago, premiering on the Governors State University Center for Performing Art stage.

The show opens Friday, Sept. 16, and is being presented over two weekends.

The protagonists in the story are two WWI soldiers — one Black, one white — returning from the battlefields of Europe.  

Upon their return, they find themselves caught in the violence of a Chicago that is struggling to accommodate the Great Migration, the return of WWI 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, families and neighbors wage block-by-block warfare, and the city’s ethnic enclaves rage and burn. The race riot would last eight days, leaving 38 dead (23 Black, 15 white), more than 500 injured (60% Black) and more than 1,000 Black families homeless after whites torched their residences.

Playwright Andrew White said: “Today, more than 100 years later, the same issues still simmer in every metropolitan area in America.”

White and fellow playwright Shepsu Aakhu have been friends and colleagues in the Chicago theatre scene for more than 30 years. They sought an opportunity to collaborate but had not found the right project until 2017 when they began co-writing “Red Summer” as a response to America’s continued racial divisions.  

Shepsu Aakhu is a prolific African-American playwright and founder of MPAACT (Ma’at Production Association of Afrikan Centered Theatre). He has written many plays chronicling the Black perspective of growing up in Chicago. Several of these plays have been presented at the Center in seasons past including “Speaking in Tongues: The Chronicles of Babel” and “Starting Over.” 

White is a Jewish-American playwright, who has placed race relations at the heart of his writing as well. 

“[The year] 2019 was the centennial of the ‘Red Summer,’ which earned its name due to the blood that ran freely in the streets of Chicago (and many other American cities),” Aakhu said. “Yet these events are largely forgotten and unknown to the general populace — even to those who live in the cities in which they took fierce hold. 

“As the saying goes, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it — and, arguably, one of the reasons racial conflicts continues to erupt in Chicago (and in every other urban metropolis in America) is because we choose to bury this history rather than look at it and understand it.  This story must be told because it sheds light on a chapter of our shared history that is too often overlooked, in the hope that an honest look at our past will make it possible to have a clearer vision of our future.”

The cast features CC Rios (Marlene), Nathaniel Andrew (DL), Ashlea Woodley (Mam), Alexander Slade (Declan), Ryan Huemmer (Connor), Bob Sanders (Mayor Big Bill), Melenie Victoria (Ida B Wells) and Joshua Miller (Dixon). The ensemble includes Michael Santos (Doyle et. al.), Chloe Belongilot (WG Cora), Allison Feist (WG Athena), Katherine Delicath (WG Liza), Anthony Augustine (Piano Player), Brian Healey (Casmero et al.), Michaelyn Oby (Eugene / WG Josephine), Lauren Wells-Mann (WG Vanessa), Autumn Price (Female Customer et. al.), Stewart Romeo and Marc Rogers. The understudies are Danelle Taylor and Jacque Bischoff.

Shawn Wallace, composer, employs musical styles ranging from gospel to jazz to hip-hop and beyond.

Show schedule

  • Preview: Friday, Sept. 16, at 7:30 p.m. followed by post-show discussion with the cast and crew.
  • Opening night: Saturday, Sept. 17, at 7:30 p.m.
  • Sunday, Sept. 18, at 2 p.m.
  • Saturday, Sept. 24., at 7:30 p.m. includes panel with local church leaders.
  • Sunday, Sept. 25, at 2 p.m.

For more information or to buy tickets, visit www.govt.edu/RedSummer. Tickets range from $29 to $39 with $10 tickets available to students. The Center for Performing Arts is on the campus of Governors State University, 1 University Parkway University Park.

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