Ben Collins-Sussman

Eastland is a musical telling the story of a 1915 disaster in which the passenger ship SS Eastland capsized while moored in the Chicago River, killing 844 people.[2] The musical opened in June 2012 and ran for 9 weeks.[11] It was produced by the Tony Award-winning Lookingglass Theatre Company and was nominated for four Joseph Jefferson awards.[11]

The reviewer for Time magazine, Richard Zoglin, wrote, "The elegiac mood, a sense of hard-working, turn-of-the-century Americans betrayed by the American dream, is heightened by the somber, folk-ballad flavor of the music — much of it played (on guitars and violins mostly) onstage by members of the cast."[2] The Chicago Tribune arts reviewer Chris Jones wrote, "Pluess and [Collins-Sussman] are richly talented songwriters [...] whose rootsy melodies understand the musical language of the ordinary Midwesterner."[13] The Chicago Time Out reviewer, Oliver Sava, wrote that the score "evokes O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Ragtime, though the lyrics can get heavy-handed."[14]

Winesburg, Ohio is a musical adaptation of Sherwood Anderson's novel, Winesburg, Ohio, about a small American town.[15] It was developed by Chicago's About Face Theatre and Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and produced at Steppenwolf Theatre, Arden Theatre, and Kansas City Repertory Theatre.[12] The Arden Theatre production won five Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theater in 2005.[12]

The Chicago Tribune arts reporter Chris Jones wrote that "one is most struck by the beauty of the vocal music that Pluess and Collins-Sussman] have woven into Anderson's poignant prose."[15] The Chicago Reader reviewer, Justin Hayford, said that "composers Andre Pluess and Ben [Collins-Sussman] create a haunting anthem revealing the town's inner life. It's a stirring opening, intricate in its dark shadings."[3]