New Theatre on the North Shore: La Red Music Theatre

Famous Last Words – a made-in-48-hrs. Musical!

L to R: Tia deShazor, Zach Zube

August 11 and 12, the North Shore’s newest theater company La Red Music Theatre performed a theatrical feat, creating four 15-minute musicals, Famous Last Words, written, composed, rehearsed and produced in just 48 hours. Jessica Redish, founder and artistic director of La Red, chose quotes at random from a book of “famous last words,” read them to the composers, told them who their actors would be, and 48 hours later four mini-musicals came to life on the stage of the Highland Park Community House.

Even if our minds hadn’t been boggled by the speed of this process, we would have been delighted by the results: witty, sweet, poignant, funny stories, sung and acted with professional prowess by a talented cast of singer/dancer/actors, backed up by Keith Harrison on piano and music by six composers. Imagine a very short Broadway musical, a cast of one (or two or three) with the bare-boards aesthetic of a Chicago storefront theater, and you start to get the flavor of La Red’s Famous Last Words.

L to R: Justin Stein, Laura Scheinbaum and Elana Ernst.

Famous Last Words featured some local talent, including Elana Ernst of Highland Park, Justin Stein of Glencoe, Northwestern University Graduates Andrew Keltz (of Chicago) and Laura Scheinbaum (of Highland Park), and Emily Thompson, Matthew Amador and Tia deShazor of Chicago. Composers are Bobby Cronin, J. Oconer Navarro, Will Reynolds, Jeffrey Thomson and Jordan Mann, all of New York. Director Jessica Redish is a Northwestern grad and Highland Park native now based in New York.

Summertime logo

Monday, August 17 at 7:30pm at the The Highland Park Community House, LA RED will present Summertime, which they describe as “A sweet, sophisticated new musical based on the play of the same name by Charles L. Mee. Love and heartache, passion and betrayal, mothers, daughters, affairs, and a maid.” This show is FREE to the public – CLICK HERE for more details.

La Red Musical Theatre is a non-profit collective of creative professionals who each summer come together to write, produce and perform musicals to “investigate the human condition, enlighten and entertain.” They also sponsor a Young(er) People’s Company. You can find them on Facebook, or email them HERE, or check their website HERE for tickets and information.

-Peggy S.