I had the extreme pleasure of composing transition music for Teresa D. Miller and her Thought to Life Production's The Illinois Five stage play, which is debuting at this year's Philly Fringe Arts Festival. The Illinois Five is a beautifully rendered, urgent, incendiary, compassionate and deeply resonant piece of writing about "five African American friends who find themselves in the middle of a race riot circa 1920. Forced to choose between life and death, they escape going their separate ways only to meet back up years later faced with reality of the choices each of them made." Having worked closely with Ms. Miller on designing a musical backdrop and soundscape that is both historically accurate and complementary to the narrative she created, I feel confident about saying she is an incredibly gifted, dynamic and exciting new voice on the theater scene. You'll be dazzled by her work. Ms. Miller has also written two other plays that will 'go up' ( be performed publicly in a theater) in the next 2 years or so. You'll want to keep an eye out for her future theatrical endeavors. The Illinois Five features some notable tri-state area actors, including one of my personal favorite creative minds, Shamika Byrd. The play runs at The Walnut Street Theatre in center city for two consecutive weekends starting Thursday, Sept 10th. GET TICKETS HERE