What's New 

This July and August will premiere SCNPF’s first full production The House I Live In; Josh White’s America, taking July 29-August 9 as part of the fifth anniversary season of the festival

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Purchase Tickets HERE

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SCNPF commissioned and developed The House I Live In; Josh White’s America by Donnetta Lavinia Grays. The original musical is inspired by the true-life story of prominent blues and folk musician Josh White, who rose to fame in the 1930s and 1940s as a singer-songwriter and as a pioneer in the civil rights movement.

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About the play:

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The House I Live In; Josh White’s America tells the story of Josh White's beginning in Greenville as a "lead boy" to Blind Musicians in the Upstate all the way to his rise to fame in the 30’s and 40’s at New York Clubs like Café Society and as a star of Broadway and Hollywood, including scenes with legends like Billie Holiday, Woody Guthrie, and Paul Robeson, to name but a few. Over the past three years, SCNPF has facilated research and interviews between Donnetta Lavinia Grays and Josh White's family members as well as local experts and scholars from the Greenville community. Many of those who were interviewed, like Ruth Ann Butler, Mary Duckett, and Josh White Jr have passed during the creation of the project, and the show immortalizes their stories in play form.

The Literary Ancestry Essay Series (Curated by playwright Dave Harris) aims to create a collection of personal craft essays by living Black playwrights about the non-living Black playwrights that live on in their work. For this series, we commissioned playwrights to pick one play by a non-living Black playwright and write about how this play impacted their artistry. The essays in this round are written by Vivian J.O. Barnes, Gethsemane Herron-Coward, Nathan Alan Davis, Donnetta Lavinia Grays, and Dave Harris.

 

https://www.roundabouttheatre.org/literary-ancestry-essay-series

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While on a quest to complete her teenage bucket list, a young woman finds romance, uncovers family secrets, and rediscovers herself.

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Donnetta joins Sofia Carson, Kyle Allen, Sebastian de Souza, and Connie Britton in The Life List, only on Netflix.

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