"Silent Sky" at Theatre in the Round

One of America's most produced playwrights of recent years, Lauren Gunderson is known for writing plays about women in history and/or science that are modern, feminist, funny, and moving. Silent Sky is one of her most popular - it's now receiving it's third #TCTheater production (I love it, but I'd also love to see The Half-Life of Marie Curie, or Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight, or any and all of her other plays). Silent Sky features little known astronomer Henrietta Leavitt, who figured out a way to measure the universe, laying the foundation for more well-known (male) scientists like Edwin Hubble. In Gunderson's hands, Henrietta is a very real and relatable woman, who wants to do work that matters, and maybe also have a little fun along the way. With a strong five-person cast and elegantly simple design, Theatre in the Round's Silent Sky is entertaining and inspirational. Who knew science could be so dramatic and emotional?! (Lauren Gunderson, that's who.)

"Silent Sky" by Theatre Pro Rata at the Bell Museum

'Tis the season for Lauren Gunderson's smart, funny, modern, and inspiring plays about female scientists in history, and I am here for it (keep 'em coming, #TCTheater). A week after seeing DalekoArts' lovely production of Ada and the Engine (about mathematician and computer programmer Ada Lovelace), I saw Theatre Pro Rata's production of Silent Sky (about astronomer Henrietta Leavitt, which I had seen at Lyric Arts a few years ago). It's a great play, but what makes this production truly special is that it is staged in the planetarium at the Bell Museum on the University of Minnesota's St. Paul campus. Despite the fact that I got my graduate degree (in statistics, you can see why I'm so drawn to women in science plays) at the U of M, I didn't even know this museum existed (in my defense, the gorgeous new building just opened a year and a half ago). I hope to return to tour the museum sometime, but my first experience to it (through theater, natch) was a wonderful one. Being able to look up at the stars as Henrietta talked about them made the story feel so real. A truly inspired pairing of play and location by Theatre Pro Rata.

Silent Sky at Lyric Arts

Have you ever heard of Henrietta Leavitt? Neither have I. But we should have. This early 20th Century female astronomer's discoveries gave us the ability to measure the universe. The much more famous (and male) astronomer Edwin Hubble built on her work and won the Nobel Prize for his work, which Henrietta could not because she died young before the full effects of her work were seen. None of us can control "who lives, who dies, who tells your story,*" but if the history books don't tell her story, we can be happy that theater is. Lyric Arts' production of Silent Sky (which, by the way, is written by a woman, directed by a woman, and features a mostly female cast) is a beautiful tribute to this brilliant, passionate, and dedicated woman who helped to quantify the idea that there is more out there in the universe than just this world we know.