{"id":16058,"date":"2025-10-20T15:37:35","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T15:37:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/silent-sky-by-sunflower-troupe-to-illuminate-henrietta-leavitts-legacy-in-astronomy\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:53:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:53:29","slug":"silent-sky-by-sunflower-troupe-to-illuminate-henrietta-leavitts-legacy-in-astronomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/silent-sky-by-sunflower-troupe-to-illuminate-henrietta-leavitts-legacy-in-astronomy\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Silent Sky\u2019 by Sunflower Troupe to illuminate Henrietta Leavitt\u2019s legacy in astronomy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Annie
Annie Cannon, portrayed by Claudia Martin, hears startling news from Henrietta Leavitt, played by Desiree Henderson, in \u201cSilent Sky.\u201d The play starts its run Sunflower Theatre on Friday, Nov. 7. (Heidi Brugger\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Sunflower Troupe is preparing to present \u201cSilent Sky\u201d at the Sunflower Theatre starting at 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 7.<\/p>\n

The play, written by Lauren Gunderson, highlights the \u201cremarkable\u201d story of astronomer Henrietta Leavitt and will run for two weekends. Additional performances are scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 8; Friday, Nov. 14; and Saturday, Nov. 15, all at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

Matinee showings will take place on Sunday, Nov. 9, and Sunday, Nov. 16, at 2 p.m.<\/p>\n

It highlights Leavitt\u2019s contributions to astronomy and the sacrifices she made in pursuit of her discoveries. The play follows Leavitt and her female colleagues as they work to earn scientific recognition at the male-dominated Harvard University.<\/p>\n

\u201cA decade before women gained the right to vote, Henrietta made world-altering calculations and discoveries at Harvard University\u2019s Observatory,\u201d the troupe said in an email to The Journal. \u201cShe and her female colleagues, called \u2018computers,\u2019 were in the minority among male astronomers, but they persevered to be recognized for their scientific achievements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Co-director Kim Welty shared that the play inspires attendees to move \u201cone\u2019s focus away from today\u2019s struggles and to the skies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnnie Jump Cannon, one of Harvard\u2019s \u2018computers,\u2019 says something that I think speaks to the power of this play,\u201d Welty said. \u201cIt is, \u2018In our troubled days it is good to have something outside our planet, something fine and distant for comfort.\u2019 This play certainly provides us with something fine and distant with which to comfort ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show is directed by Hattie Miller and Welty, and features Desiree Henderson, Mimi Genheimer, Claudia Martin, Silvia Fleitz and Abraham Profitt. Other troupe members include costume designer Marie Chiarizia and set designer and builder Gene Reninger. Miller and Brynn Weber managed the technical side of the play.<\/p>\n

Tickets can be purchased online<\/a> at www.sunflowertheatre.org\/events\/silent-sky-by-lauren-gunderson\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

will inspire the audience to look to skies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1060,364,21,28,60,29,910],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts-entertainment","tag-community","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-theatre"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16058"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19993,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16058\/revisions\/19993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16058"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}