First live audience since March 2020
By
Tony LaRoche
From left, Sarah Taylor plays Williamina Fleming, Alana Parrott plays Annie Cannon, and Carleigh Boyle plays Henrietta Leavitt in “Silent Sky,” which opens Oct. 14 in J-Studio. (URI photo by Nora Lewis)
Audiences
will get a history lesson – along with a look at the science of astronomy – as
the University of Rhode Island Theatre Department opens the season Thursday,
Oct. 14, with Lauren Gunderson’s “Silent Sky.”
Written
in 2015, “Silent Sky” tells the true story of 19th-century
astronomer Henrietta Leavitt and her fellow female researchers – or “computers”
– in the Harvard University observatory who set the standard still used today
for measuring distances in space while discovering thousands of stars. Twenty
years before women’s suffrage, the “computers” pursue their passion for
astronomy in a society that limits women’s roles while credit for their
discoveries are dismissed or claimed by male astronomers.
“Silent
Sky” also returns URI Theatre to live audiences for the first time
since March 2020 when theaters everywhere were shuttered because of the
pandemic. To attend “Silent Sky,” audience members must be vaccinated and wear
a mask while inside the Fine Arts Center. Onstage, actors will be unmasked, but
will remain at least 3 feet apart from each other and the audience. (Please
view URI Theatre’s COVID-19 policy.)
“There’s nothing like live theater,” says director Tracy Liz Miller, who joined the Theatre Department as a lecturer this semester.
“Doing things on Zoom without
the interaction and relationship with the audience, it’s not the same. It’s
just gratifying to be back in a rehearsal hall and talking in detail about a
play and working with collaborators and designers. Similar to Henrietta
Leavitt, we’re all grateful to be obsessed with a project.”
Carleigh
Boyle ’22, who plays Henrietta Leavitt, will be performing in her first play
before an audience since her sophomore year. Despite the safety mandates, she
says she’s slightly nervous, but very excited.
“The
entire cast and crew have been so excited to do theater,” says Boyle, a theater
and animal science major from Hillsdale, New Jersey.
“But we’ve also continued all the fun traditions we do in URI Theatre, such as
pre-show warmups, senior gifts, listening to music in the dressing rooms,
pajama day. We haven’t gotten to do all this in a while, and it’s like a breath
of fresh air to do it again.”
Audrey
Visscher ’22, a theater and film major from Piscataway, New Jersey,
is also excited to get back to live theater. Last year, Visscher worked the
light board for “Miss Nelson is Missing!,” a full-stage production that was
recorded and shown online.
“Rehearsals
have been very upbeat, but also very cautious,” says Visscher, the play’s
assistant director and lighting designer, who helped oversee safety precautions
during rehearsals. “We want to be as safe as we can to ensure we can open the
theater to live audience members.”
In
“Silent Sky,” Leavitt and her fellow “computers” – a person who is hired to
perform complex calculations in their head or with pencil and paper – had to
have absolute passion for astronomy and doggedly pursue it to earn an
opportunity to work in the Harvard observatory, Miller says.
Still,
Leavitt and her fellow female researchers, Annie Cannon and Williamina Fleming,
worked for ridiculously low wages compared to the male astronomers. They also
weren’t allowed to touch the observatory’s great refractor telescope and had to
use photographic glass plates to map the stars.
“The
work was super precise and ridiculously repetitive,” Miller says. “It’s ironic.
That repetitiveness allowed them to become extremely intimate with the sky and
to figure out a system in which we map and measure the distance of the stars.
They created a standard that now is so absolutely necessary.”
Along
with a history lesson, “Silent Sky” explores the strength of relationships
among the found family of “computers” and the passion and pull of work and
relationships.
“There
weren’t a lot of choices for women back then,” says Miller. “To work often
meant you were choosing that over marriage and the home. There weren’t a lot of
men who were like, ‘You want to be a scientist and be my wife – fabulous.’ That
just wasn’t done in upper-middle-class society.”
For
Boyle, playing Henrietta, who died 100 years ago this year, has a special
meaning. “Silent Sky” has become one of her favorite plays since reading it her
sophomore year, and Henrietta is a role model and a dream role.
“In
the play, Henrietta is a fun, wacky, passionate, smart as a whip character,”
says Boyle. “All of the scenes in this play are so dynamic, beautiful and
inspiring. It is amazing to see how every character and relationship grow
throughout the show.”
To
help create an accurate portrait of the early 1900s, students have worked with
David Howard, Theatre chair and costume designer for the show, to learn how to
move in period clothing, while also learning proper everyday etiquette of the
time and an understanding of the vast scientific changes and the astronomical
instruments that were used.
In
a play about stars, lighting also plays a large role.
“Lighting
is almost a sixth character in this play,” says Visscher, in her first role as
lighting designer. “All of the stars help tell a story that would be incomplete
without them. Lighting also helps with transitions and tells the audience where
we are and when we are. And it aids with the location of characters, if they
are in the same room or miles apart.”
Miller
wanted the actors to fully grasp the world their characters lived in so they
would understand the importance of Henrietta’s accomplishments.
“It’s
not like this is a play about a day in the life of an astronomer,” says Miller.
“No, this is about a groundbreaking, amazing human being who, against many
odds, did what she did.”
“Silent
Sky” runs
Oct. 14-16 and Oct. 21-23 at 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 17 and 24 at 2 p.m. in J Studio
at the Fine Arts Center, 105 Upper College Road, Kingston Campus. Tickets are
$20 for general admission and $15 for senior citizens and URI students, faculty
and staff. Tickets can be purchased at the URI Theatre box office in the Fine
Arts Center or by calling (401) 874-5843.
Main
cast
Role, actor, hometown
- Henrietta Leavitt, Carleigh Boyle, Hillsdale, New Jersey
- Margaret Leavitt, Jenna Wentworth, Tewksbury, Massachusetts
- Peter Shaw, Ben Pereira, Danbury, Connecticut
- Annie Cannon, Alana Parrott, Webster, Massachusetts
- Williamina Fleming, Sarah Taylor, Providence
Understudy
cast
- Henrietta Leavitt, Zoe Pepin, Maynard, Massachusetts
- Margaret Leavitt, Olivia Humulock, Narragansett
- Peter Shaw, Manny Maldonado, Newport
- Annie Cannon, Kayla Ribeiro, Pawtucket
- Williamina Fleming, Naomi Tyler, Warwick
