Light Years

LIGHT YEARS, is a musical fable about a father and son and a gift that gives voice to a haunted past. It saw its world premiere at Tony Award-winning Signature Theatre (Arlington, VA) in February-March, 2018, and became the third highest grossing new musical in the theatre’s 30-year history.

The story follows Robbie, a precocious kid growing up with his father Konnie–a charismatic, sensitive, irrepressible storyteller who is haunted by a secret. A turn in both their lives comes when Konnie gives seven-year-old Robbie a guitar, neither of them realizing that it will allow Robbie to tell the only story his father never could.

LIGHT YEARS is about how we love each other even when we don’t understand one another. It is about celestial illusions and reckless donkeys and deaf ears that talk back. It is about forgetting, and remembering, and being lost. And being found.

Book, Music, Lyrics by Robbie Schaefer

Directed by Eric Schaeffer

Music Direction by David Holcenberg

LIGHT YEARS is currently in post-production as a feature film produced by Rolling Pictures and slated for release in the first half of 2023.

It’s so exciting to see a new musical that’s totally original, personal, and new. That’s how I felt seeing Dear Evan Hansen at Arena Stage in 2015 and now seeing Light Years at Signature Theatre today.

Ari Shapiro, host of NPR’s All Things Considered

We get to go along on this journey, which unfolds a bit like a folk-rock opera. A bit like a play. A bit like a musical. A bit like a concert. But, mostly, a poem—an epic one with (the father) standing at the center . . . a hero who not only finds home, but also shows his son the way.

DC Theatre Scene