NHP alum Donnetta Lavinia Grays’ The House I Live In: Josh White’s America, commissioned by the South Carolina New Play Festival, makes it world premiere performance at the end of July.

Born in Greenville, where the festival takes place, Josh White grew up leading blind street musicians through the Upstate before rising to national fame in the 1930s and '40s. He became the first Black artist to sell a million records, shared stages with Billie Holiday, Woody Guthrie, and Duke Ellington at legendary New York venues like Café Society (the nation's first integrated nightclub) and became a pioneer of the civil rights movement before the House Un-American Activities Committee tried to silence him.