Anything That Gives Off Light

World Premiere – at Edinburgh International Festival, August 16-26 2016.
2019 US Tour – March 1-2, at Moss Arts Center (Virginia Tech, VA) | March 4-5 at Duke Theater (Lincoln Memorial University, TN) | Mar 14-30 at Joe’s Pub (NYC)

Watch video Photos Press from EIF Joe’s Pub Digital Program

Every light casts a shadow…

Anything That Gives Off Light follows the story of a Scottish man who, after years of living in London, catches the sleeper train north to the heart of Scotland for a homecoming he’s been putting off for years.  In a pub, an American woman drinks alone, trying to remember who she is while forgetting where she came from. When their paths collide they set off on a tour of the Highlands, slipping through the cracks between present and past, waking and dreaming, the real and the imagined. But as they shed the layers of their national identities, the ghosts of dead philosophers, crofters, cowboys, myth-makers and soothsayers get ever closer.

A fierce poetic snapshot of two contemporary cultures linked by history.
The Scotsman

Exhilarating…Raw, heartfelt and messy on several levels…Boldly theatrical.
The Stage

Strong and thoughtful… (ensemble and music) combine to create an ambiance, a taste of and for Scotland and Scottishness that likely to be matched only by Forfar bridies, meat pies and very buttery shortbread.
Newsweek

[A] pugnacious, liquor-soaked musical… The songwriting duo the Bengsons composed the eclectic array of tunes—some poppy, some folksy, all good… A rich seam of aching observations about land and soil and property.
New Yorker

Featuring live music from the Scottish-American folk tradition, and the TEAM’s trademark athletic performance style, this foot-stomping collaboration explores the tension between self interest and sacrifice and the individual and the collective in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

Written by Jessica Almasy, Davey Anderson, Rachel Chavkin, Brian Ferguson, and Alexander Grierson 
Created in collaboration with Matt Hubbs, Nick Vaughan, Brian Hastert, and Libby King
Directed by Rachel Chavkin with Associate Director Davey Anderson
Music and Lyrics by The Bengsons

A co-production by the TEAM, National Theatre of Scotland, and Edinburgh International Festival

Development of Anything That Gives Off Light was supported, in part, by the School of Performing Arts, Center for the Arts, and the Women and Minority Artists and Scholars Lecture Series at Virginia Tech, and by the Global Connections – In The Lab program, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group.

The 2019 US tour of Anything That Gives Off Light was supported, in part, through a grant from the Network of Ensemble Theatres’ Travel & Exchange Network (NET/TEN), supported by lead funding by the Andrew W. Melon Foundation

Photo by Griffin Pivarunas includes performers Martin Donaghy, Reuben Joseph, Jesse Linden and Maya Sharpe.