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Silent Sky” by Lauren Gunderson Directed by Mark Anderson Phillips May 16-June 16, 2019 Supported by Visionary Producers Nancy B

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Silent Sky” by Lauren Gunderson Directed by Mark Anderson Phillips May 16-June 16, 2019 Supported by Visionary Producers Nancy B Next on our THE WICKHAMS: CHRISTMAS AT CABARET THE WOLVES PEMBERLEY stage: JULY 18-AUGUST 25 SEPT. 19-OCT. 20 NOV. 14-DEC. 15 HIGHLIGHTS A companion guide to “Silent Sky” by Lauren Gunderson directed by Mark Anderson Phillips May 16-June 16, 2019 supported by Visionary Producers Nancy B. Coleman & Paul M. Resch Synopsis For Henrietta Leavitt, heaven is the night sky. When she’s hired by the Harvard Observatory, doors seem to be opening for her. But it’s 1900, and women aren’t even allowed to look through the telescope. They must chart the stars from photographs and keep their ideas to themselves. Undaunted, Henrietta quietly pursues her own revolutionary theories as family ties, societal pressure and love pull her in other directions. This lyrical drama is based on the true story of a pioneering astronomer whose discoveries have helped us measure the vast reaches of space. Characters Listed here in order of appearance, here are the Silent Sky characters as described by playwright Lauren Gunderson. Henrietta Leavitt (Maria Giere Marquis): 30s, brilliant, meticulous, excited. Almost always wearing a period hearing aid. Margaret Leavitt (Jessica Whittemore): Henrietta’s sister, she is in her 30s and a homebody, creative, sweet. From front, Henrietta Leavitt (Maria Giere Marquis), Margaret Leavitt Peter Shaw (George Psarras*): 30s, the head astronomer’s (Jessica Whittemore), Williamina Fleming (Karen DeHart), Annie apprentice … and the man. *Member, Actors’ Equity Association Cannon (April Green) and Peter Shaw (George Psarras). Show photos by Taylor Sanders, taken at the historic Fallon House in downtown Annie Cannon (April Green): 40s, the leader, terse and sure, San Jose. Thank you to History San Jose for hosting the photo shoot! grows into a firebrand. Williamina Fleming (Karen DeHart): 50s, smart as a whip and fun, Scottish. About the playwright and play Anyone who’s been at City Lights in the last few years should know that we really, really love playwright Lauren Gunderson. This is the fourth play of hers we’ve produced in as many years: Exit, Pursued by a Bear; I and You; and Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley (written with Margot Melcon) came first. Oh, and we’re also doing the Miss Bennet companion piece The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley this fall. Lauren writes scripts that are smart, witty, insightful and empathetic. She also excels at telling the stories of women who have not been given their historic due, many of them working in science. Frequently, she speaks on the intersection of science, theater and arts activism. Originally from Atlanta, Lauren is now a San Franciscan whose local work includes serving as playwright in residence at the Marin Theatre Company. Across the country, she is consistently recognized as one of the most-produced living playwrights in America. Her work has been commissioned, produced and developed at numerous U.S. companies, including TheatreWorks, San Francisco Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, South Coast Repertory, The Kennedy Center, The O’Neill, and Denver Center. Her other plays include The Taming, Emilie: La Marquise Du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight, Ada and the Engine, The Book of Will, The Revolutionists and the musical The Amazing Adventures of Dr. Wonderful and Her Dog! The 2014 winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play award, she was also a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for I and You. Other honors include the 2016 Lanford Wilson Award from the Dramatists Guild. Lauren studied Southern Literature and Drama at Emory University, and Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School, where she was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. Commissioned by South Coast Rep, Silent Sky premiered in 2011 and has since become a popular offering at theaters across the country and beyond (including Lauren Gunderson as a guest on “Big Albania!). The Atlanta Journal-Constitution called it “an intellectual epic told on an Picture Science,” a radio show and intimate scale. Bottom line: Heavenly.” podcast produced by the SETI Institute. Photo from Lauren’s Twitter page. The real-life heroines of “Silent Sky”: Women “computers” at Harvard College Observatory If you’ve read Margot Lee Shetterly’s book or seen the movie Hidden Figures, about African American female mathematicians working at NASA, you've heard the phrase "human computers." Though it sounds curious to us today, it was commonly used for centuries to describe people doing mathematical calculations. In Silent Sky, we explore Harvard College Observatory's women “computers” hired in the late 1800s and early 20th century. Several became famous astronomers, despite not being permitted to use the telescope. Instead, director Edward Charles Pickering enlisted them to care for and analyze the observatory's photograph collection. They studied the stars -- and in many cases made key discoveries -- working simply from glass plates. Thanks to the funding of Anna Palmer Draper and others, the Henry Draper Catalogue (named for Anna's late husband) continued to grow. Notable women astronomers working on this collection included not only Silent Sky’s Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Annie Jump Henrietta Leavitt working at her desk. Cannon and Williamina Fleming but also Florence Cushing, Antonia Maury and many others. Want to learn more? Read Dava Sobel’s The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars. Henrietta Swan Leavitt Working for 30 cents an hour, with scant recognition or intellectual freedom, Henrietta Leavitt became a pioneer astronomer whose discoveries still help us measure and understand the vast reaches of space. Born in Massachusetts in 1868, Henrietta attended Oberlin and Radcliffe colleges and grew fascinated with astronomy. Then an illness took much of her hearing and kept her home for several years. Nevertheless, she returned to her passion and was appointed to the permanent staff at Harvard College Observatory at the turn of the 20th century. Studying photos of the stars on glass plates — and forbidden from using the telescope — Henrietta was assigned to study variable stars (those that change brightness periodically). She discovered more than 2,400 variable stars, about half known at the time. Through this work, she developed what the Harvard Gazette recently called "a powerful new and durable tool for estimating the distances of stars and galaxies, a crucial advance for understanding the size and evolution of the universe that astronomers of the day were struggling to accomplish.” Later scientists stood on the shoulders of Henrietta's work. Edwin Hubble used her discoveries to look at fuzzy clouds that astronomers had long thought were nebulae. He then realized that they were both farther away than previously thought, and that they were in truth galaxies. He continued to build upon her work to determine that the universe was expanding. This circa-1890 photo shows several of the women “computers” at work at the Sadly, Henrietta was not nominated for the Nobel Prize Harvard Observatory. They include: Henrietta Leavitt, seated, third from left; until after her 1921 death from cancer. But science Annie Jump Cannon, front; and Williamina Fleming, standing. continued to advance, and in 2011 the Nobel was awarded for the discovery that the universe's expansion is indeed accelerating. Adam Riess, one of the Nobel laureates, said that he had used Henrietta's tool as an integral part of his studies. “By discovering a relationship for some stars between how bright they appear and how fast they blink, Henrietta Leavitt gave us a tool to gauge the size and expansion rate of the universe," he said. "That tool remains to this day one of our very best for studying the universe.” Though little of Henrietta's own writing survives, an obituary paints an evocative picture of Henrietta's personality: "She took life seriously. Her sense of duty, justice and loyalty was strong. ... She had the happy faculty of appreciating all that was worthy and lovable in others, and was possessed of a nature so full of sunshine that to her all of life became beautiful and full of meaning.” Annie Jump Cannon There are few things that impress Silent Sky's main character, Henrietta Leavitt, as much as the night sky. But she is completely star-struck by Annie Jump Cannon. Little wonder. When Henrietta began her work at the Harvard Observatory, Annie was already a veteran of several years, and had already developed the system that astronomers today still use to classify stars. (The system would not be officially adopted by the International Astronomical Union until 1922. Woman astronomers in those days had to be good at waiting.) In the play, when Henrietta meets Annie, she’s delighted to learn her new co-worker has not only invented this influential system but created the mnemonic for remembering the seven classes of stars into which hundreds of thousands of stars are divided: O,B,A,F,G,K,M -- or, as the abbreviations were irreverently known, "Oh, Be A Fine Girl: Kiss Me.” Annie’s system was but one of numerous highlights in her illustrious career. Valedictorian of her class at Wellesley College in 1884, she surprisingly took her degree in physics to first pursue a career in photography, traveling in Spain and publishing a Annie Jump Cannon. collection of her images. Then, in 1893, she contracted a case of scarlet fever that took most of her hearing. She returned to physics, teaching and earning her master’s degree at Wellesley, and then in 1896 began working as a female “computer” in the Harvard Observatory. Annie’s pace was astonishing. Focusing on stars in the southern sky, she classified 5,000 a month between 1911 and 1915 -- a total of 225,300 stellar spectra by 1915. She also published numerous catalogues of variable stars, continuing to work at the observatory until shortly before her death in 1941 at age 77.
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