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The USC Department of Theatre and Dance will present the searing drama The Light by Loy A. Webb, March 16-19, 2023 at the Lab Theatre.
Show times are 8pm nightly. Tickets are $10 and are available online at sc.universitytickets.com or at the door. The Lab Theatre is located at 1400 Wheat St. on the first floor of the Booker T. Washington building. The Light contains mature content that is not appropriate for children.
Recipient of Chicago’s Jefferson Award for Best Play in 2018, The Light is a visceral, real-time roller coaster ride that sees a loving relationship rocked by secrets from the past. When we are introduced to Genesis and Rashad, it’s during the romantic high of a heartfelt marriage proposal. The happy plans are suddenly derailed, however, by an accusation of sexual assault that threatens to rip apart their bond of love and trust.
“...the #MeToo play you didn’t know you wanted, but that you need to see.” — Nylon
“...an urgent and painful story of revelation, redress, and hopeful reconciliation cued at the intersection of #MeToo and Black Lives Matter.” – StageLeftNYC
Guest artist Ibi Owolabi is directing the production, marking her third time helming a USC show in the last two years. She previously directed These Shining Lives by Melanie Marnich at Longstreet Theatre (February 2022) and Jaclyn Backhaus’ You on the Moors Now at Drayton Hall Theatre (April 2021). The past year has led to her Broadway debut, as she assistant directed Cost of Living by Martyna Majok at the Manhattan Theatre Club (October 2022). Owolabi is a 2022 recipient of the Drama League Stage Directing Fellowship.
Loy A. Webb made her professional debut as a playwright with The Light at Chicago’s The New Coordinates (formerly The New Colony) in 2018. She has since published another full-length play, His Shadow, and written for the television shows NOS4A2 (AMC) and Ms. Pat (BET).
“What I feel like The Light does, that I have never seen a story about sexual assault do,” Webb told the digital magazine Nylon, “is it puts Black women at the center and has a conversation that we have been having repeatedly in the Black community… I just don't feel like there's a story out there that deals with this issue how I dealt with it. And that's not me being cocky about it, it's the truth. Coming from a Black woman's perspective of us being heard, us being tired of having to always explain these things.”
Cast in The Light are undergraduate theatre major Asaru Buffalo as Rashad and M.A.T. graduate student Shakori Jennings-Shuler as Genesis. Designers include theatre majors Spade Kambak (lighting) and Josiah Burton (sound), and MFA Costume Design graduate student Lindsay Wilkinson (costume).
For more information on The Light or the theatre program at the University of South Carolina, contact Kevin Bush by phone at 803-777-9353 or via email at bushk@mailbox.sc.edu.