When you enter the main theater at the Temple of Art for Arizona Theatre
Company’s production of Silent Sky, you are greeted with a dark stage, star projections, and a small church as a set.
It’s beautiful.
Lauren Gunderson, one of the most-produced playwrights in the country, wrote the play about astronomer Henrietta Leavitt, her work, and desire to use the telescope at Harvard University in the early 1900s.
Henrietta Leavitt cataloged and studied Cepheid stars - stars that pulsate. Her work allowed for the discovery of how to measure galaxies and later, Edwin Hubble’s realization that the universe is expanding. The show follows her journey navigating personal relationships, her career and work with cepheid stars, and the sexism of the time.
This play was directed by Casey Stangl, who has directed plays all over the country and won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Direction. She masterfully used the themes of feminism, sexism, science, and romance Gunderson wrote and make made the production unique as well as stunning.
One of my favorite parts of the play had to be the set, which was designed by Jo Winiarski. It looked fairly simple at times, but that was so effective due to the projections (done by Jeffrey Teeter) that related to each of the scenes throughout the show.
At the very end of the production, Henrietta offered a monologue while standing alongside her colleagues and family. They, as well as part of the theater, were swallowed by a singular projection of the night’s sky.
Arizona Theatre Company’s production of Silent Sky is playing in Phoenix at the Herberger Theater from November 14 to December 1.
Ursula Denholm
Photo from Arizona Theatre Company