STAGE & STORY: “Silent Sky” and Galileo’s Daughter, a memoir

Have you ever looked up at the starry sky and wondered what was up there? We all have! Humans have always held a fascination for the heavens.
Join us as we explore our own astronomical soiree as we explore the lives of two very different astronomers who lived 300 years apart: Galileo and Henrietta Levitt. First we’ll meet for dinner at CinCin (limit 10) to discuss Galileo's Daughter an historical memoir and then we’ll head over to the theater to watch Silent Sky, the true story of Henrietta Leavitt (1868-1922), an American astronomer who worked at Harvard University as a “human computer” reviewing data about the skies. Purchase your tickets on your own using the link below.
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5:45pm DINNER: CinCin
Menu: CinCin Restaurant in Chestnut Hill
Pan-Asian food with a French flair
Time: 5:45pm
Limit: 10 spaces
Please bring cash to make splitting the check easier.
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THE STAGE: Silent Sky
Where: The Stagecrafters Theater in Chestnut Hill
Show Time: 8:00pm
Show type: True story portrayal
Writer: Lauren Gunderson
Director: Yaga Brady
In a male dominated field and not allowed access to a telescope, Henrietta Leavitt (1868-1922), an American astronomer who worked at Harvard University as a “human computer” reviewing data about the skies nevertheless made ground-breaking discoveries about the universe which resonate to this day in the field of astronomy.
Tickets: $26 plus $1.50 processing fee via Paypal
HOW TO PAY: Buy your tickets here: 8PM Friday, December 1st production of Silent Sky.
You will need PayPal to purchase your ticket as the venue uses PayPal as their 3rd party payment processor. Please do not RSVP until you have purchased your ticket for the play. You will be put on the list for the dinner discussion of Galileo's Daughter once you have your ticket and have RSVP'd (limited to the first 10)

The theater will rope off a section for us so that we can all sit together even though we've purchased our tickets separately.

Note: Parking for the restaurant and play is street only. Parking is not allowed at the theater during the play. Or you may park at one of the nearby paid lots: directions and paid parking

THE STORY: Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel
Genre: Memoir
Galileo Galilei is one of history's most famous astronomers. Among his many scientific achievements, he discovered Jupiter's four largest moons, safely viewed and sketched sunspots and backed the then controversial heliocentric model for the planets' movements. He was both greatly admired by his contemporaries as well as despised and pursued by his detractors, even coming into the cross-hairs of the Catholic Church's Inquisition for propagating his views. The book tells Galileo's biography through the lens of the letters his elder daughter wrote to him as a cloistered nun in the order of the Clares, just a few miles from Galileo's home. It is a tender and illuminating portrait of the relationship between the two, giving insight into Galileo's ordeals, the life of a nun pledged to poverty and life in Italy in the 1600's.

The son of a musician, Galileo Gahlei (1564-1642) tried at first to enter a monastery before engaging the skills that made him the foremost scientist of his day. Though he never left Italy, his inventions and discoveries were heralded around the world. Most sensationally, his telescopes allowed him to reveal a new reality in the heavens and to reinforce the astounding argument that the Earth moves around the Sun. For this belief, he was brought before the Holy Office of the Inquisition, accused of heresy, and forced to spend his last years under house arrest.

Of Galileo's three illegitimate children, the eldest best mirrored his own brilliance, industry, and sensibility, and by virtue of these qualities became his confidante. Born Virginia in 1600, she was thirteen when Galileo placed her in a convent near him in Florence, where she took the most appropriate name of Suor Maria Celeste. Her loving support, which Galileo repaid in kind, proved to be her father's greatest source of strength throughout his most productive and tumultuous years. Her presence, through letters which Sobel has translated from their original Italian and masterfully woven into the narrative, graces her father's life now as it did then.

With all the human drama and scientific adventure that distinguished Longitude, Galileo's Daughter is an unforgettable story.