Chagrin Valley Little Theatre

Mr. Death and the Redheaded Woman A Musical Based on the Original Story by Helen Eustis Music & Lyrics by Bill Rowe and Book by Shelley Costa

Performance Dates & Tickets

About the Play

An original one-act musical of the Old American West.

WORLD PREMIERE!

Starring: Amy Pelleg, Jon Gellott, Brian McCann and Natalie Dolezal

"Mr. Death and the Redheaded Woman" was originally titled "The Rider on the Pale Horse,a short story of the Old West" by Helen Eustis, published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1951. Eustis was the second winner ever of an Edgar Award for Best Novel from Mystery Writers of America in 1946, for her novel, The Horizontal Man. The story was dramatized in the 1950s for an episode on General Electric Theater starring Lee Marvin and Eva Marie Saint -- and then danced, in a separate episode, by choreographers Gower and Marge Champion.

In the story, Maude Applegate, the fiery Redheaded Woman, makes a bargain with Mr. Death to spare the life of Billy-be-damn Bangtry, her own true love. Helen Eustis, currently living in Manhattan, has graciously given Bill Rowe and Shelley Costa permission to adapt her wonderful Western fairy tale for musical theater. The result, Mr. Death and the Redhead Woman, is a lively one-act play with five characters and thirteen original songs.

Bill Rowe (music and lyrics) and Shelley Costa (book) first collaborated in 2007, when their full-length musical, These People, was produced at the River Street Playhouse.