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Wellesley College Theatre presents its Spring 2024 Mainstage Production: Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson, directed by Marta Rainer.
About the show:
Silent Sky tells the true story of pioneering astronomer Henrietta Leavitt. In the early 1900’s, Henrietta joins a unique team of women “computers” - lead by Wellesley graduate Annie Jump Cannon and Williamina Fleming - to chart the celestial skies at the Harvard Observatory. Responsibilities, relationships and obstacles on our own planet can’t keep her from her life’s passion: to identify the exceptional. Lauren Gunderson’s play celebrates Henrietta’s life of deep inquiry and determination, while it explores a woman’s place in society during a time of immense scientific discoveries, the growing suffragette movement and beyond. Henrietta Leavitt and her trailblazing peers believed in both social progress and scientific progress, and their dedication changed the way we understand both the heavens and Earth.
ASL Interpreted performance: Saturday, April 27 at 2pm. Please select "ASL section," and you will be directed by the box office upon arrival. ASL team includes:
- Sabrina Dennison, DASL
- Nathan Fowler, Interpreter
- Caity MacFarlane, Interpreter
About the production:
Silent Sky, is the culmination of a semester of work for students in THST345 (Advanced Practicum: Theatre Production), and features an all-student cast and creative team mentored by professional advisors. Acting and design students engaged deeply with the play and its historical context during a visit to both Wellesley’s Whitin Observatory, as well as to the Harvard Plate Stacks Collection. There Thom Burns, Curator of Astronomical Photographs, shared relevant highlights of their collection, which spans over 550,000 glass plate negatives and spectral images, including over a century’s worth of irreplaceable scientific observations, and represents the first full image of the visible Universe. A company trip to experience the total eclipse together on April 8th will further inform the observable astronomical wonder of the scientists they are portraying, which drove their quest for knowledge. As with recent productions, cast and creative team members of Silent Sky will participate in the Region One Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in January 2025.
Date & Time
Apr 25 - 28, 2024
Venue Details
Ruth Nagel Jones Black Box Theatre
106 Central StreetWellesley, Massachusetts 02481
