December 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, and 15 at 7:30 pm
December 8 and 16 at 2:00 pm.
Thursday, December 12 is pay-what-you-can at the door.
Directed by Leigh Taylor with performances from Nancy Paulinski Becker and Melissa Manier.
THE STORY: In 1911, Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discovery of the elements radium and polonium. By 1912, she was the object of ruthless gossip over an alleged affair with the married Frenchman Paul Langevin, all but erasing her achievements from public memory. Weakened and demoralized by the press lambasting her as a “foreign” Jewish temptress and a homewrecking traitor, Marie agrees to join her friend and colleague Hertha Ayrton, an electromechanical engineer and suffragette, and recover from the scandal at Hertha’s seaside retreat on the British coast.
The Half-life of Marie Curie revels in the power of female friendship as it explores the relationship between these two brilliant women, both of whom are mothers, widows, and fearless champions of scientific inquiry.
Lauren Gunderson is one of the most produced playwrights in America since 2015 topping the list thrice including 2022/23. She is a two-time winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for I and You and The Book of Will, the winner of the William Inge Distinguished Achievement in Theatre Award, the Lanford Wilson Award and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award; a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Weisberger Award, and John Gassner Award for Playwriting; and a recipient of the Mellon Foundation’s Residency with Marin Theatre Company. She 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. Her play The Catastrophist, about her husband virologist Nathan Wolfe, premiered digitally in January 2021. She co-authored the Miss Bennet plays with Margot Melcon, and The Half-Life of Marie Curie premiered off-Broadway and is now at Audible.com. Her work is published at Bloomsbury (Revolutionary Women: A Lauren Gunderson Anthology, anthropology, I and You), Playscripts (I and You; Exit Pursued By A Bear; The Taming and Toil And Trouble), Dramatists Play Service (The Revolutionists; The Book of Will; Silent Sky; Bauer, Natural Shocks, The Wickhams and Miss Bennet) and Samuel French (Emilie). Her picture book Dr Wonderful: Blast Off to the Moon is available from Two Lions/Amazon. She is the book writer for musicals with Ari Afsar (Jeannette), Dave Stewart and Joss Stone (The Time Traveller’s Wife), Joriah Kwamé (Sinister), Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk (Justice and Earthrise), and Kira Stone (Built for This). She is a board member of The Playwrights Foundation. LaurenGunderson.com
“It’s rare to classify a show as both fun and educational, but Lauren Gunderson’s THE HALF-LIFE OF MARIE CURIE is just that—a 90-minute slice of history brimming with wit and wisdom, powered by two turn-of-the-20th-century female STEM stars.” —New York Stage Review.
“A frisky, feminist crowd-pleaser, THE HALF-LIFE OF MARIE CURIE radiates empowerment—which is fitting, since it centers on the woman who coined the term radioactivity. …enlightening and entertaining.” —Time Out New York.
“Written with insight, passion, and humor… [a] masterful script… With its engaging biographical narrative and timely historical message, THE HALF-LIFE OF MARIE CURIE will surely cement Gunderson’s reputation as the number one produced playwright in the US.” —DC Metro Theater Arts.