How The Light Gets In

A SAMUEL FRENCH, INC. TITLE

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Concord Theatricals

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Cast Size

2w, 2m
Duration

90 minutes
Target Audience

Adult

Accolades

Winner! 2020 Harold and Mimi Steinberg / American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award

Details

Summary

A travel writer who never travels. A Japanese architect who can’t figure out how to build a simple tea house. A gifted tattoo artist who resists the power of his talents. And a homeless girl who lives under a weeping willow tree in the Japanese Garden. Four lonely people, their stories written on paper, earth and skin, find each other when one of them falls apart. Together they realize the heart is as strong as it is fragile, and that the safety of home might be found in the most fearsome explorations. A beautiful, haunting and richly human play.

History

How the Light Gets In premiered at Boston Court Theatre in Pasadena, California on September 29, 2019. Directed by Emilie Pascale Beck, the production featured Amy Sloan, Ryun Yu, Chelsea Kurtz and Dieterich Gray.

Cast Attributes

Role(s) for Asian Actor(s)

Keywords

Performing Groups

GRACE WHEELER (F/46) – A travel writer who has never been anywhere. She volunteers as a docent at the Japanese Garden (but she isn’t Japanese).
HARUKI SAKAMOTO (M/52) – An architect who specializes in creating buildings set in natural spaces. Japanese.
KAT LANE (F/17) – A young runaway. She wears lots of layers of clothes that obscure her gender. Hollow-eyed and wary.
TOMMY Z (M/39) – A tattoo artist. Rough and dangerous-looking at first glance, but big-hearted. Has a special gift of seeing a person clearly, and drawing just the right thing on their skin

NOTE: The actors playing Kat and Tommy Z also play a variety of other characters, as indicated.

Time Period Present Day, New Millennium/21st Century
Setting A hospital, Grace’s house, a tattoo parlor, a highway overpass. The present.
Features Contemporary Costumes/Street Clothes
Additional Features No Intermission
Duration 90 minutes
Cautions
- Alcohol
- Strong Language
- Mild Adult Themes

Media

“Nuanced... earns its optimism through hard-won human connection.” – Los Angeles Times

“There’s nothing sentimental or facile... about this nuanced new play... effectively plays to the playwright’s emphasis on emotional authenticity in all its messy contradictions, rather than analytical judgment... Lewis’ play earns its optimism through hard-won human connection.” – Los Angeles Times

“Poetical... Each of these people is uniquely damaged — rather like a one-of-a-kind worn or cracked piece of pottery which can be mended kintsugi-style, so that its imperfections come to define its beauty and its value. This parallel, between a person and something we treasure, is what makes this play so special.” – StageRaw

“Thoughtful and embracing... a study in inward emotions... With great economy of words, everything spoken here is a reaching out from a shy, ascetic darkness that grips each of these four people, toward the light of more peaceful, open and joyous encounters.” – Cultural Daily

Videos

How the Light Gets In - Boston Court Pasadena Trailer
Developing How the Light Gets In with E.M. Lewis

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Authors

E. M. Lewis

E.M. Lewis is an award-winning playwright, teacher and opera librettist. Her work has been produced around the world and is published by Samuel French/Concord Theatricals.

Lewis received the Steinberg Award for both How the Light Gets In and Song of Extinction, and the Primus ...

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How The Light Gets In