The Half-Life of Marie Curie, newly revised by playwright Lauren Gunderson, will open for nationwide streaming from TheatreSquared (T2) on November 28, 2020. Following the successful completion of T2’s September streaming run of Ann—which originally opened in February—The Half-Life of Marie Curie is the first brand-new production to be staged at the theatre since the onset of the public health crisis, and only the second production of the play since its acclaimed 2019 New York debut.
Dawn Monique Williams directs, with Rebecca Harris (Bad Dates, Mauritius, Good People) returning to TheatreSquared to play Marie Curie, and Leontyne Mbele-Mbong playing scientist and suffragist Hertha Ayrton in her T2 debut. On-demand streaming is available for any date from November 28 through December 20 at just $20 per household ticket. The opening night performance on November 28 will feature pre-show and post-show conversations via Zoom with the artists and a celebratory toast. For tickets, call (479) 777-7777 or visit www.theatre2.org.
Lauren Gunderson is the nation’s top-produced contemporary playwright and the author of TheatreSquared’s 2018 production of Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley—a record-setting favorite that year. The Half-Life of Marie Curie revels in the power of female friendship between two fearless scientists at the heights and depths of their careers and lives. 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 a married Frenchman, all but erasing her achievements from public memory. Weakened and demoralized by an unrelenting and unforgiving press, Marie joins her friend and colleague Hertha Ayrton, an electromechanical engineer and suffragist, to recover from the scandal at Hertha's seaside retreat on the British coast.
“It’s such a joy to return to the stage with this brand-new work for our Fifteenth Anniversary Season,” said T2 Artistic Director Robert Ford. “Marie Curie was the first scientist to win not one, but two Nobel Prizes against incredible odds. During this pandemic, the legacy of these two brilliant women shines as a beacon of inspiration—of how science can bring us out of this profound crisis, and friendship can carry us through.”
“Scientists are people — they’re not just brains, they’re bodies and hearts,” said Gunderson in an interview with NPR in 2019. “It’s not what we expect from this certain scientist, Marie Curie, and I found that to be a really thrilling alchemy to put on stage, with rich emotions, high stakes. It became this story about this incredible unstoppable friendship that defines these two women and, frankly, changes the world, as well as saves both their lives.”
“TheatreSquared’s innovations in streaming this summer and fall have brought new audiences from 19 countries and 49 states,” said Executive Director Martin Miller, “with acclaim from outlets as varied as The New York Times, NPR’s All Things Considered, The New Yorker, and others. We are deeply grateful to our loyal supporters and friends here in Northwest Arkansas who continue to make this work possible every day.”
In its New York debut, The Half-Life of Marie Curie was a popular success and won critical acclaim. Time Out New York described the show as “enlightening and entertaining—it radiates empowerment.”
Household tickets for The Half-Life of Marie Curie start at just $20, and can be purchased online at theatre2.org or by calling 479.777.7477.
Lauren Gunderson (Playwright) has been one of the most produced playwrights in America since 2015, topping the list twice including in the 2019/20 season. 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 Lanford Wilson Award and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 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. She co-authored the Miss Bennet plays with Margot Melcon, and her play The Half-Life of Marie Curie is available on Audible.com. Her work is published at 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.
Cast and Creative Team
The Half-Life of Marie Curie is helmed by Dawn Monique Williams, making her TheatreSquared debut with this project. She is the associate artistic director at Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley, Calif. Her recent directing credits include Bull in a China Shop (Aurora Theatre Company, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts); Earthrise (Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts); The Merry Wives of Windsor (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Moon Man Walk, Tijean and His Brothers, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (American Conservatory Theatre, MFA program); Letters To Kamala (American Stage); The Secretaries (Profile Theatre); Romeo & Juliet (Chautauqua Theatre); August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson (Le Petit and UNCO); Lynn Nottage’s By the Way, Meet Stark (Douglas Morrisson and UNCO); and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Town Hall). She is currently directing an audio version of Lynn Nottage’s Las Meninas for Profile Theatre. Her awards include a Princess Grace Theatre Fellowship, a TCG Leadership U Residency Grant, and a Drama League Directing Fellowship. She holds an M.A. in dramatic literature and an M.F.A. in directing. She is a proud member of SDC.
The play features Rebecca Harris (Bad Dates, Mauritius, Good People) returning to TheatreSquared to play Marie Curie, and Leontyne Mbele-Mbong, who plays Hertha Ayrton in her T2 debut.
Additional members of the creative team for The Half-Life of Marie Curie include Ashleigh Burns (Scenic Design), Ruby Kemph (Costume Design), Jason Lynch (Lighting Design), Michael Prieto ( Sound Design), Christopher Smith (Camera Director), and Kris Washington (Film Editor).
Performance Schedule
The Half-Life of Marie Curie is captured live at TheatreSquared and offered as an on-demand, streamed performance. Patrons can reserve a 24-hour on-demand window for any date between November 28 and December 20, with access beginning at noon each day and continuing through noon the following day.
Ticket Information
For tickets, visit theatre2.org. For additional ticket assistance, contact the Box Office at TheatreSquared at 479.777.7477 or email tix@theatre2.org.
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About TheatreSquared
TheatreSquared’s signature offering of bold new plays in an intimate setting has driven its growth to become the state’s largest theatre, offering more than 300 performances annually in two intimate spaces and online. The playwright-led company is one of mid-America’s leading laboratories for new work, having launched more than 60 new plays. Notable collaborators have included Bryna Turner, Anne García-Romero, Pulitzer Prize finalist Lisa D’Amour, Qui Nguyen, Mona Mansour, Tony Award nominee Lee Blessing, Amy Evans, and many others. TheatreSquared’s remarkable expansion—with a twentyfold increase in audience in just the past decade—parallels the emergence of its home region in the northwest corner of Arkansas as a booming population center and destination for American art. Offering far-reaching access and education programs and an open-all-day gathering space, the Commons Bar/Café, TheatreSquared remains rooted in its founding vision, that “theatre—done well and with passion—can transform lives and communities.”
Major funding for the TheatreSquared Season 15 is provided by The Walton Family Foundation, Inc.; the Walmart Foundation; and by the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Marketing support for TheatreSquared Season 15 is provided by Experience Fayetteville, the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Fayetteville Flyer, 3W Magazine, CitiScapes, KUAF, MailCo USA and Univision.