Commissioned for the University's bicentennial, the play by John Tuttle explores the life of Richard Theodore Greener. Greener was the first African-American faculty member of the South Carolina College during the Reconstruction period in the 1870s when the institution was one of the first to be fully integrated.

The play will be presented at 7:30 p.m. April 5–7 and at 3 p.m. April 8 in Longstreet Theater. Admission is $10, adult; $8, faculty and staff; $6, students; and $5, groups of 10 or more.

Born in 1844, Greener grew up in Boston and became the first African American to graduate from Harvard. When the integrated South Carolina College closed and reopened as a segregated institution, Greener left South Carolina and became a lawyer, politician, and civil servant.

He also was the first African American to represent America abroad as a consul in Vladivostok, Russia. While Greener appears to be an early African-American success story, his life was often caught between factions in America's racial conflict. Educated as an "experiment" by a group of wealthy Bostonians, Greener was exploited and manipulated by many of his white supporters, while many in the African-American community found him suspicious.

The White Problem presents Richard Greener giving an address to an audience at USC in 1907. Greener actually traveled to South Carolina that year, spoke at a number of institutions, and visited the University. On the evening the play takes place, he is joined by a younger version of himself as well as other voices from his past and future.

David Wiles, theatre, speech, and dance, will portray Greener for the Columbia production. Darion McCloud will appear as the younger Greener and provide other voices. Thorne Compton, theatre, speech, and dance, is the play's producer. Gregg Leevy is the director. On May 26, the play will open for a two-week run in Charleston as part of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival.