Scene from a performance of Quantum Voyages, which premiered in 2018 and was reprised in 2025
Latrelle Bright came to UIUC in 2009 as assistant program coordinator for Inner Voices Social Issues Theatre. Over the following years she worked to bring underrepresented voices and perspectives before area audiences while directing shows at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, the Station Theatre, and Parkland College. Bright also pursued innovative partnerships, such as The Water Project (2017), with the Prairie Rivers Network; and Quantum Voyages (2018), with Smitha Vishveshwara and the University of Illinois Physics Department. In 2020 Bright became a teaching professor in the UIUC theatre department. Along with Vishveshwara and Rebecca Wilftong from Physics, and Stephen Taylor from Music, she co-founded a campus-wide, interdisciplinary community, CASCaDe—Collective for Art-Science, Creativity and Discovery, etc.
Bright’s creativity was interrupted by a diagnosis of breast cancer, and she passed away September 21, 2025. She is survived by her husband, Rex Bennett; her mother, Anita Johnson; her stepchildren, Maxwell and Yekaterina; and her artistic legacy in the community and among her students. Below are remembrances from colleagues and co-creators.
Voyaging with Latrelle
From Smitha Vishveshwara, physicist, science-Artist, Public Voices Fellow
2014. I first beheld her as a vision, a radiant smile, walking toward me across the glistening floor of the Krannert Center for Performing Arts. Latrelle Bright! She, a theater-maker, a beautiful, compassionate spirit. Me, a physicist and writer, carrying many a story within. Latrelle, to become my most beloved friend, guide, companion of the soul, our Light!
She invited me into a confluence, a narrative arc from her theater space meandering through the quantum realms of my research: the performance piece Quantum Voyages. We scripted over hot tea at our homes, wrapped our heads around quantum conundrums, transformed my son’s toy figurines into actors, and danced as photons across the living room.
Quantum Voyages: a tale of two voyagers exploring the strange innards of Quantum, guided by the spirit of wisdom, accompanied by the “quantum ensemble” troupe in constant metamorphosis. Absorbing insights from quantum sages, real-life physicists on stage. Encountering Schrödinger’s cat—at once dead and alive. Steeping in waves of light, bundles of light. Keeping company with the feisty fermions and brotherly bosons that make up matter. Gliding in harmony. Battling. Whirling and precessing as protons within MRI machines. And emerging awakened.
Smitha and Latrelle writing Quantum Voyages. Photo by Smitha Vishveshwara, used with permission
Time and again, Latrelle magnificently conjured these vivid realms alive on stage. She would blend every unique voice present in this happy space, in every workshop, every rehearsal, in so many a community she nucleated. With kindred spirits, we folded layer upon layer into our Quantum Voyages creation—music, visuals, choreography . . . A sacred journey, from its birth for our sage, Sir Tony Leggett’s 80th in 2018, to a magnificent culmination at the national stage in Anaheim for the 2025 International Year of Quantum and at Krannert—a dream come to fruition, a luminous world she ignited into Being.
September, 2025. Latrelle’s earthly journey came to a close too soon. A piece of my soul evaporated. On our path of love and tears, we carry her Light within us, those bushels of luminous photons, ours to take forward.
“She Didn’t Let Audiences Off Easily”
From Kendall Jeonson, Station Theater
Latrelle Bright changed the way I make art and the way I show up for people. She believed in me early, nudging me toward leadership at The Station Theatre and helping me see that I could hold that responsibility with both courage and care. Working with her on Elephant’s Graveyard at Parkland remains one of the most powerful experiences of my life. She asked for our full selves in the room—no halfway, no hiding—and then gave us the tools and trust to get there.
Latrelle didn’t just talk about “building bridges.” She built them—patiently, joyfully, and with intention—until people didn’t just feel welcome, they felt wanted and safe. That’s the lesson I carry forward at The Station: open the doors, yes, but also do the relationship work so those who walk through them know they belong.
Her range as a director was astonishing, but what I think about most is how she chose stories that asked more of us. Productions like Describe the Night or Sleep Deprivation Chamber didn’t let audiences off easily. She guided us to the “inconvenient places,” as she called them, and still took care of the artists along the way. She believed theater could change people—not by preaching, but by inviting us to sit in discomfort long enough to discover our shared humanity. Every rehearsal with her felt like a conversation about the world and how to live in it more honestly.
Even when she was in the audience rather than on stage, you could feel her presence—a quiet warmth, a fierce attention, the kind of listening that makes performers braver. Seeing her after a show, smiling that knowing smile, you understood that she had really seen you, not just the performance, but the person. I’d been offstage for twelve years before hopping back in to perform in the play with the title “[title of show],” and I was so happy to know she was able to see it. It was a full-circle moment as I shared my return to performing with someone who had helped me believe I still had something to say.
I’m grateful for her mentorship, her friendship, and her example. She taught me that excellence and generosity are not opposites, that leadership is service, and that communities are built one honest conversation, one rehearsal room, and one open door at a time.
The world is dimmer without her, but her light is not gone. It’s in the artists she lifted, the students she guided, the neighbors she welcomed, and the bridges she left for us to keep crossing and extending. I won’t settle for less than that future. It’s the one she showed me how to build.
Every. Single. Day.
From Lisa Gaye Dixon, professor emerita of theatre and dance, UIUC
I think about her every day. Every. Single. Day. I am reminded of her by: television adverts; characters in books; as my mind wanders thinking about what project I might next want to work on and where (Carolyn Kodes and I were excitedly discussing plans to have her direct us in a play together); by a “Black Girl Magic” coffee cup of hers given me that is now my own personal talisman as I feel her watching over me every morning. I remain in touch with her husband and her mother, both of whom I have come to know and care for through this shared crucible. I have been deeply, irrevocably, joyously enfolded into the vast circle of Latrelle’s life, and I am ever grateful for it.
We met in her very first days here in Champaign-Urbana, and quickly became fast friends; and, to be honest, I sit here with myriad thoughts and images jostling/tossing/turning in my brain. I share some in hopes it makes my friend Latrelle Bright as vibrant and alive for you as she is in my memory.
- Playing an impromptu game of “name that tune” with 1970s radio hits on a late night visit to her house, all of us singing at the top of our voices to “Muskrat Love.”
- Watching movies with “great social and/or political import,” and being so excited we would often stop the film to discuss how we experienced shared issues of the characters around intersectionality of race, gender, and age; and how we both strove, as young, black, female artists, to find our voices in a world that found us threatening at worst and invisible at best. All while chomping on delicious popcorn . . .
- Going to the movies and apologizing to Latrelle for gasping, laughing, crying, grabbing her arm, etc., and having her wave it away saying she found it muchmore enjoyable with my company, saying ”Lisa Dixon, I will go to a movie with you ANYTIME.”
- Accidentally surprising her and Rex on their first date by popping up at the same restaurant (the look on her face: priceless). Then later, being honored to attend their wedding at the Arboretum. She was resplendent.
And then:
- Receiving a call from her in early summer and her asking me if I was ”sitting down.”
- Sitting beside her bed in hospital, talking about Life, the Universe, Everything, while she was getting treatment.
- Sitting in my tiny garden on a cloudy August day, hearing of the spread of the cancer and the inevitableness of the story’s ending—crying and repeating on the phone, “She is a light, she is a light, it’s not fair, she is a light . . . “as if the incantation could work magic.
From Latrelle I learned how to be completely myself no matter the rooms I enter. I learned a more profound meaning of “artistic success” and about the value of community in ALL its forms. I learned to meet others and myself at the place where we are. I learned a true love and curiosity for the world around me: life, Life, LIFE.
I think about her every day. EVERY. DAY. And I am glad.
If you wish to contribute to her named scholarship, please donate to: The University of Illinois Foundation (UIF), with the designation: Latrelle Bright Memorial Scholarship; or through this page.
