Silent Sky Program

Chair
E.J. Westlake

Production Manager
Sherée Greco

Director
Tom Dugdale

Scenic Designer and Properties Designer
Chad R. Mahan

Media Designer
Alex Oliszewski

Costume Designer
Rebecca Turk

Lighting Designer
Iz Nichols

Sound Designer
Keya Myers-Alkire

Production Stage Manager
Maddie Green

Technical Director
Chad R. Mahan

Assistant Directors
Olivia Kroh
Victorial Smith

Dramaturg
Sarah Cole

Theatrical Intimacy Choreographer
Aviva Neff

Theatrical Intimacy Captain
Victoria Smith

External Relations and Publicity Coordinator
J. Briggs Cormier

Ticketing Services and Audience Services Specialist
Julia Buttermore

Graphic Design
Formation Studio

Technical Director
Chris Zinkon

Scenic Studio Manager
Chad R. Mahan

Scenic Studio Teaching Associates
Katherine Simon, Megan Wells

Scenery Construction Crew
Nini Adams-Johns, John Baniak, Mathew Fisher, Gregory Goldberg, Matt Henry, Nil Kocaoglu, Mae Neighbor, Garrett Ratliff, Jillian Regal, Thomas Robinett, Zach Sudal, Amelia Whitley, Gabe Willenberg, Jenny Xu

Set Run Crew
 Aly Diallo, NilSena Kocaoglu, Yeonjae Lee, Grace McIlroy

Costume Studio Manager
Coco Mayer

Costume Studio Teaching Associates
Jo Fuller, Catherine Huffman

Costume Construction Crew
Samantha Acevedo, Nini Adams-Johns, Valerie Dunmire, Mya English, Melissa Hobson, Madison Knight, Casey Kuhlman, Anne Lang, Saran Lendzian, Sofia Malik, Nina Pavis, Anastasia Smith, Christopher Smith, Kimberly Tatro, Brian Waligura, Tristan Weathers

Wardrobe Crew
Hannah Allen, Radja Bradley, Lauren Meadows, Zach Sudal

Lighting Studio Manager & Production Electrician
Eric M. Slezak

Lighting Programmer
Matt Henry

Light Board Operator
Mae Neighbor

Lighting Crew
Luke Carman, Grace French, Gregory Goldberg, Nil Kocaoglu, Yeonjae Lee, Ruth Luketic, Sofia Malik, Zach Sudal, Nicholas Younoszai

Sound and Media Studio Manager
Keya Myers-Alkire

Sound Board Operator
Anne Lang

Sound Crew
Gregory Goldberg, Olivia Hamlett-Ho, Carolyn Kealey, Yeonjae Lee, Ruth Luketic, Nicholas Younoszai

Projection Operator
Ladini Wallace

Ticket Office Staff
Emily Broski, Mae Neighbor, Brenda Ramoz Perez, Jason Speicher, Gabrielle Wheeler, Julie Wietholter

House Managers
Fatoumata Kante

Colin Barberic (Peter Shaw Understudy), 1st-year student
Pronouns: he/him
Hometown: Medina, OH
Major(s): theatre; philosophy, politics, and economics
Minor(s): Spanish
Department Productions: debut

Sarah Cole (dramaturg), graduate student
Pronouns: she/her
Hometown: Athens, GA
Major(s): theatre
Department Productions: Men on Boats

Nathaniel Criss (Peter Shaw), senior
Pronouns: he/him
Hometown: Grove City, OH
Major(s): communication technology
Minor(s): theatre
Department Productions: debut

Maddie Green (production stage manager), sophomore
Hometown: Springboro, OH
Major(s): English; theatre
Minor(s): history
Department Productions: first department production 

Gabriella Johnson (Henrietta Leavitt), senior
Pronouns: she/her
Hometown: Aurora, CO
Major(s): social work
Minor(s): theatre
Department Productions: In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play); Everybody; Blood Wedding

Olivia Kroh (asst. director), graduate student
Pronouns: she/her
Hometown: Mandan, ND
Major(s): theatre
Department Productions: 1st department production

Alison Lohr (Williamina Fleming and Annie Cannon Understudy), junior
Hometown: Akron, OH
Major(s): sociology
Minor(s): theatre
Department Productions: debut

Marta Minarik (Williamina Fleming), 1st-year student
Pronouns: she/her
Hometown: Cleveland, OH
Major(s): finance
Department Productions: debut

Iz Nichols (lighting designer), senior
Pronouns: they/them
Hometown: Columbus, OH
Major(s): theatre
Minor(s): studio art
Department Productions: Sweat; Violet; The Seagull; Men on Boats

Isabella Sanchez (Henrietta Leavitt Understudy), junior
Pronouns: she/her
Hometown: Westchester,  NY
Major(s): marketing
Minor(s): musical theatre
Department Productions: debut 

Marina Sepulveda (Margaret Leavitt), sophomore
Pronouns: she/her
Hometown: Youngstown, OH
Major(s): psychology
Minor(s): Spanish; theatre
Department Productions: Everybody

Victoria Smith (asst. director; intimacy captain), graduate student
Pronouns: she/they
Hometown: Greensburg, PA
Major(s): theatre
Department Productions: 1st department production

Kalee Sribanditmongkol (Margarett Leavitt Understudy), 1st-year student
Pronouns: she/her
Hometown: Gahanna, OH
Major(s): theatre
Minor(s): musical theatre; voice acting
Department Productions: debut

Hailey Zitser (Annie Cannon), 1st-year student
Pronouns: she/her
Hometown: Durham, NC
Major(s): communications; theatre
Department Productions: debut

“Darling, we are in the business of perspective. You know it's fundamentally hard to tell if something is big and bright… or just close by.”—Williamina Fleming, Act II, Scene 1

In 1995, the Hubble Telescope took the first photo of an interstellar mass called The Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula. Search the photo, and you will see ethereal columns of ocher dust. Whisps of gas against a murky and shadowed expanse. Tantalizing. Intimate. Ours. On a small screen in our hands, we feel as if we could easily slip into their midst and swim in the sea of stars. Have we forgotten what it was like as a child to look up into the night sky and wonder in awe at all of it?

To the astronomer Henrietta Leavitt, stars were small pinpricks of light in distant, unexplored space that held more mysteries than answers. She lived her life with an unceasing devotion to seeking truths in the cosmos. Today, we acknowledge her as the first person to measure distance in our galaxy. So, why is she largely unknown outside of the astronomical community?

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Harvard University Observatory was the center of the astronomical universe. Under the direction of Dr. Edward Pickering, the observatory pioneered humanity’s first spectrometry measurements, mapping the night sky with photographs captured from the Great Refractor Telescope. The large brunt of the work was accomplished by women “computers” that Pickering hired to identify and record star data from glass plates bearing the telescope images. These women (some housekeepers, mothers, and sisters, and suffragettes) were brilliant mathematicians and astronomers. The men in the department, like the broader academic community, viewed them as lesser contributors to the field and simple clerical aids. Pickering even referred to the group as “girls in a math harem.” Despite the immense inequality and sexism in the workplace, the women engaged in crucial work: discerning the material nature of stars, creating the first stellar classification model, and identifying thousands of cepheids and nebulae.

In Silent Sky, Lauren Gunderson calls us as the audience to see the characters in Silent Sky are not merely astronomers but dreamers, thinkers, and agents of change. Women who fearlessly asked their world, opposed to their hopes and ambitions, for something more, even if they would never live to see it.

Henrietta never got a chance to know the answers that she asked of her cosmos. She passed away just two years before 1923, the year Edwin Hubble used her calculations to prove that our universe extends far beyond the Milky Way and that there are whole other galaxies outside of ours.

As Gunderson invites us into Henrietta’s world, she suggests that we have a special gift. We can be participants in this great Answering. She suggests the audience is the final ingredient in a performance. We are the missing element of the story.

This play is a journey of perspective, and yours matters to how we will make meaning together. Henrietta asks of her heaven: How do we know what matters in this vast, seemingly unknowable universe?

Tonight, you search with her.

How might you answer her call?

Stick around after the performance on Friday, March 1st for a post-show discussion with Dr. Jennifer Johnson and Dr. David Weinberg from The Ohio State University Department of Astronomy.

After the performance on Wednesday, March 6th, the cast and members of the creative team will speak with members of the audience about the production and the creative process.

On Saturday, April 6th, the department will publicly celebrate the new Theatre, Film, and Media Arts Building. Join us as we recognize this milestone in the department's and university's history.