St. Jude Players Present Lauren Gunderson’s SILENT SKY in August

St Jude’s Players will present Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson. Directed by Lesley Reed, 8th-17th August, St Jude’s Hall, 444 Brighton Road, Brighton.

The St Jude’s Players’ Diamond Anniversary year 2024 has been a busy one, with a major show and the recent staging of a highly successful One Act Play Festival. Coming up in August is the South Australian premiere of Silent Sky, Lauren Gunderson’s dizzying dramatisation of the life and work of early 1900s American astronomer Henrietta Leavitt.

Now hailed as an astronomer ahead of her time in the early 1900s, Henrietta Leavitt, in her first job at Harvard Observatory, enjoyed a status far below that of the institution’s male astronomers. To achieve her dream, Henrietta is driven by an obsessive work ethic, even as it affects her relationships with her family, her colleagues, and her new love. Eventually, Henrietta makes a fundamental scientific discovery that changes human understanding of the extent of the universe.

“It’s a warm, not at all technical or dry, and often very funny story about extraordinary human exploits,” said director Lesley Reed. “I loved it from the first reading.”

Henrietta Leavitt was born in Lancaster, Massachusetts, in 1868. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1892 and, after volunteering at Harvard Observatory for a time, obtained a permanent position there. Working under Harvard Observatory astronomy professor Edward C. Pickering, her colleagues included Annie Jump Cannon and Williamina Fleming, who were already well-known in their fields. From her routine work cataloging stars, particularly Cepheid variables (pulsating stars), Henrietta devised new standards that allowed astronomers such as Edwin Hubble to determine the distances of these stars and, therefore, the star clusters and galaxies in which they were observed. Many astronomers of the time believed that our Milky Way represented the extent of the universe, and this new discovery was therefore astonishing.

Ill throughout her life and deaf as a result, Henrietta died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1921, shortly after being promoted to head of the observatory’s Department of Photographic Stellar Photometry. Although she received little recognition for her work from other astronomers of the time, she was nominated for a Nobel Prize after her death.

Jenny Giering’s beautiful original score for Silent Sky runs throughout the St Jude’s Players production, along with stunning lighting and projections. A field of stars “shines and cradles the stage” – as the playwright expects for productions of this play.

The settings are diverse and include a northern hemisphere star field, the second-floor offices of the Harvard Observatory, the Leavitt House in Wisconsin, an ocean liner on the Atlantic, and Henrietta’s home in Cambridge, MA.

“Needless to say, on the small stage at St Jude’s Hall, set designer Don Oakley has once again used his magic touch, and this time to create a rather abstract atmosphere within the overall set,” said director Lesley Reed. “This makes sense in a play where time is fluid and often moves across years within a single scene.”

The production stars Brittany Daw as Henrietta Leavitt. The cast includes Tianna Cooper as Margaret, Josh van’t Padje as Peter, Deborah Walsh as Annie Cannon and Joanne St Clair as Williamina Fleming.

A Playwrights Foundation board member, Lauren Gunderson is an American playwright, screenwriter, and musical book author (she collaborated with co-writers on The Time Travelers Wife and other works). She is also a children’s book author. She is considered one of the most produced American playwrights of the past decade, topping the list three times. Gunderson is a two-time winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award and has received numerous other awards. She is also a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. Her plays include I and You, Exit Pursued by a Bear, The Revolutionists, The Book of Will, Silent Sky, Bauer, Natural Shocks, Emilie, The Wickhams, and Miss Bennet. Lauren Gunderson’s most recent play (2021) is Catastrophist, about her virologist husband.

Production dates and times: Thursday, August 8 and 15 and Friday, August 9 and 16, 7:30 p.m. Matinees Saturday, August 10 and 17, 2 p.m. Tickets $25 and discounts apply.

The venue is St Jude’s Hall, 444 Brighton Road, Brighton. Bookings from 18th July at https://www.trybooking.com/CSKLU. Alternatively call 0436 262 628 or email [email protected].

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