Lebo McKoena ’18
By A’ntonia Benson
In Life and Theater: A JKB Series, blogger A’ntonia Benson ’18 randomly selects members of the Skidmore theater department to chat with about how and why they choose to be involved with theater at Skidmore. Today, A’ntonia sits down with Lebo McKoena ’18.
AB: Can you please tell me your name, class year, and what you do around the department?
LM: My name is Lebo. I’m from South Africa. I’m a Senior-Junior, I took a year off last year to work on my production company, which I’ll tell you more about later. I’ll be graduating in 2018, but I don’t mind. I’m a theater major. I haven’t had much of an opportunity to be super involved in the theater department because I’ve been doing my own writing and producing on the side. But I look forward to being part of it next semester, maybe I’ll audition or assist somehow.
AB: I remember you saying you were taking a year off, but I didn’t realize it was for your production company. That’s so cool. It’s called Oreo and Coconut Productions?
LM: Mhm.
AB: And you do it in conjunction with Rashawnda Williams ’17?
LM: I used to, yeah. We co-founded it but I’ve been the executive director for now, while she takes time off.
AB: Lovely. That’s so cool. What brought you to the JKB?
LM: Well, I didn’t have a choice! I love theater. I specifically came to study in New York because I wanted to pursue a theater degree. I’ve known since I was 11 years old or so and I started writing poetry. And performance has always been part of my culture. I realize now, having moved to the US, and having met other cultures, that I come from a very expressive, performative culture. So that was ingrained in me from a young age.
AB: I know that next semester you’ll be directing a workshop. Could you tell us about it please?
LM: It’s a new work. Everything I write, I write under me—well, under Oreo and Coconut Productions. So the workshop sponsored by Oreo and Coconut Productions and the theater department. It’s called “Vox Women.” “Cox” is Latin for “voices,” and women. That’s a working title. I’m still thinking of making it “Vox Masadi” which also means “women” but in my Sotho language. Simply put, it explores the inheritance of womanhood. On my year off, I spent some time with a group of women in a mental health facility. I was interacting with all these women who were considered by society to be broken. But the strength I saw in these women and the stories that they carried was absolutely moving. Even as depleted souls, they were able to stand for each other. I got fascinated by the strength of woman. Not even “women,” just the strength of the womanhood that you have. I’m very careful to speak about it or describe it in this way because I don’t want it to come across as a feminist play. It’s cross-cultural—the interesting thing is that I got inspired in South Africa and I’ll be developing it with an American cast, so it’ll be very interesting to see how the cast here is going to relate to some of those stories and what they have to add to those stories. There were main themes that I had with these women, but I want to see if they’re consistent, to explore the string that connects all women in all parts of the world, apart from our hormones.
AB: You’re saying these are based on experiences that you’ve had in your life. Is the through line you observing these women or are you trying to actually be in their skin and show how they are as people?
LM: Interesting question. There are parts of myself. I don’t think that any writer can say, “I’ve written something and there’s no piece of me in it.” So yes, there are pieces of me. Am I trying to observe these women or am I trying to give them a voice? My work has always been giving the voice. I double major in anthropology and theater because I feel like anthropology gives me the tools to go out and receive these stories, to be receptive of them, to know how to find them. And theater gives me the opportunity to process and vocalize these stories. Anthropology ends with ethnographic research. It’s on paper, but how many people have access to it? My aim is to make social issues vocalized and made accessible through other mediums so that we can all engage in it, not just anthropologists or sociologists. I’m trying to integrate social culture and social awareness with the medium of theater, and trying to enhance that and use it as a vehicle for change.
AB: I’m so happy that you say that because if you look at history, most performative art has started as protest.
LM: Often I struggle to relate to current American and Skidmore theater as a South African artist and a person that was fed South African theater and African theater. In South Africa we had apartheid. And art, performance art, is what liberated people and got the atrocities of apartheid spoken and heard by the whole world. If we didn’t have song, if we didn’t have dance, if we didn’t have acting or writing, nobody would know. I fell in love with theater because it was a place where we could discuss and where I could give voice to and learn about other people. It was a place where I could give voice to myself and to my people, and where I could use myself as a vessel for voices which are often muted. And that’s what theater is for me. It’s more than entertainment, it’s more than music, it’s more than pretty, nice lights. It’s real. It’s almost too real for other people to swallow sometimes.
AB: You are very impressive and have a lot to say. Thank you so much.
LM: Thank you!