Red Summer: A New Musical

Sometimes they are not just stories. History happens one day at a time – through a chorus of lives – lived simultaneously, with little notion of what comes next. Too often we forget this. We think that they are simply stories – meant to entertain us. We look for the “moral,” the “takeaway,” the “happy ending” – forgetting that our lives seldom unfold that way. Sometimes we need more… we need to remember – to connect – to feel. These seven days happened. That tragic summer happened. These events happened… on our streets – to our families… and across our nation. History is alive… and it stutters.

Red Summer is a large canvas upon which is painted an epic moment in Chicago history. This modern musical (crafted by MPAACT co-founders Shepsu Aakhu and Shawn Wallace, along with Andrew White, co-founder of Lookingglass Theater) is set during the 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,” these soldiers 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.