The 1947 jazz hit “But Beautiful” written by Jimmy Van Husen, with lyrics by Johnny Burke, was recently performed in Shorewood High School’s Studio Theater. This song was part of a play written by Isabelle Oberholtzer, a 2003 Shorewood graduate. The play, entitled But Beautiful after the song sung in it, showed Friday November 30 for it’s one and only performance.

Barbara Gensler, Shorewood’s Drama Director, asked Oberholtzer to bring the play to Shorewood after Gensler saw it staged at the Greign Theater in June. This was But Beautiful’s second time being publicly performed. Although there were many time constraints and obstacles involved with making the play happen at SHS, Oberholtzer pulled it off. She recruited five girls from seventh hour drama class and invited anyone interested in the production to try out. The girls practiced three days a week during seventh hour as well as after school once a week. With only a few weeks to prepare the 30 minute long play, the cast was pressed for time.

Theater theorists Oberholtzer studied in college inspired her while she was writing the play’s script. Oberholtzer said that those theorists would make people “think about what they’re watching more.” She really wanted to perform the play in a small, enclosed space, such as the studio. “I think when you see the actors up close you can really connect with it,” Oberholtzer noted.

Actress Ronnie Eder also thought the topic would be easier to grasp close up. “It has two meanings. One is the story on top, and one is deeper, like love,” Eder said. The play deals with a serious topic, which was a drastic change from Shorewood’s recent productions of Seussical and Showcase. Gensler chose Oberholtzer’s production because it was a different type of play than Shorewood had ever done.

The play focused on a topic of a female student and female professor falling in love. For never having performed a play of such a serious topic, Oberholtzer was greatly impressed by her cast: “They’re living up to my vision of what the play should be.” Oberholtzer felt that women communicate better than men. This was her reasoning behind her selection of two women for the two main characters. She added that all of the Shorewood girls “really fit the part.”

The thing that really tied the play together was the music. From the jazz tune that the play is named after to Beethoven, there was always music playing in the background. But Beautiful was a different production then is usual at Shorewood high school, but with interesting music and great acting it was a success.