It’s 1920s America and flapper girls are just starting to kick up their heels as Cecilia Payne, a 21-year-old Brit, arrives at the doorsteps of Harvard. Working alongside Annie Cannon, Antonia Maury, and several other of the greatest astronomers of the era, Cecilia and the ‘computers’ embark on a quest for understanding the nature of the cosmos while simultaneously navigating the perils of what it means to be a young woman and a scientist in the early 20th century.

This full cast reading included actors Lynne Lipton, Matt Maher, Peter Maloney, Mary Elaine Monti, Alice Kremelberg, Charles Socarides, and Andrea Syglowski.

Adrienne Campbell-Holt is the founding Artistic Director of Colt Coeur, a Brooklyn-based theater company founded in 2010, and creator of its education initiative. She is a recipient of a Jerome Foundation/Tofte Lake Fellowship, the EST/Sloan Grant, an alumna of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, and a New Georges Affiliated Artist. Her many acclaimed projects as director include Ruby Rae Spiegel’s Dry Land and Nikole Beckwith’s Everything Is Ours.

Cecilia Payne won a scholarship to Cambridge University but had to relocate to Harvard to be granted a degree in 1925. Her doctoral research was a breakthrough in understanding the composition of the universe; her later discoveries laid the groundwork for all research on stars and galaxies today. Although Payne struggled to gain the recognition her work deserved, she became Harvard’s first female department chair in the 1950s and later joined the staff of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

This event was generously underwritten by Alexander Sanger in honor of Jeannette Watson Sanger.