STELLA, a new play about women and astronomy which will open in May 2013 and then begin a UK tour to include Greenwich Theatre and The Rose Kingston

这部关于女性和天文学的新剧将于2013年6月在英国巡演。STELLA讲述了两位女性天文学家的故事：来自C18的卡罗琳·赫歇尔和来自C21的虚构的射电天文学家杰西卡·贝尔：伦敦大学学院的讲师杰西被邀请写她过去最喜欢的女天文学家，因此，杰西来到巴斯研究卡罗琳·赫歇尔的生活。这部作品以双重叙事的形式展开：来自不同时代的两个女人同时居住在巴斯的同一栋房子里。我们的意图是让我们的观众，在情感上参与到两位天文学家的个人挑战中，或许会(有意识地或甚至是下意识地)考虑时间和空间的概念。杰斯这个角色也提供了对赫歇尔遗产的当代洞察，这无疑丰富了后来天文学家和宇宙学家的研究。该剧的前提是卡罗琳对未来天文学家的关注是一股激情的推动力，她的观察和图表的严谨和准确都融入了这一动力。这个关于过去和未来的主题对该剧至关重要：我们了解到，在阿拉伯之春中，杰西的女儿已经成为亚历山大图书馆的一名实习生-因此，对第一位女天文学家希帕蒂亚(公元350至415)的记忆也贯穿了这部作品。最终，通过将历代女性的角色与对宇宙的研究联系起来，我们希望表明，对理解和真理的追求是所有女性、男性、科学家和艺术家的交汇点，这个交汇点加深了我们对我们所生活的世界的体验，并滋养了人类的心灵；女性天文学家的挑战与所有女性都相关“观众被赤裸裸的情感和对人们第一次看到深空的惊叹所窒息”，《卫报》约翰·维达尔在2012年5月斯特拉的表演朗读中说道。我们的游览包括格林威治剧院、布莱顿的老市场、吉尔福德的伊冯·阿诺剧院的磨坊、玫瑰金斯顿、牛津剧场的BT工作室和斯卡伯勒的斯蒂芬·约瑟夫剧院。目前，我们正在11个场馆巡演，预计演出总数为20场，观众总数为2320人。然而，如果从STFC获得资金，我们将能够大幅扩大Stella的巡演；我们希望在今年夏天至少演出两个音乐节，并且已经对秋季电影院产生了强烈的兴趣。

This new play about women and astronomy will be on a UK tour from June 2013.STELLA tells the story of two female astronomers: Caroline Herschel from the C18th and Jessica Bell, a fictional radio astronomer from the C21st: Jess, a lecturer at University College, London is invited to write about her favourite female astronomer from the past and so, Jess arrives in Bath to research the life of Caroline Herschel. The action of this piece unfolds as a double narrative: two women from different times simultaneously inhabit the same house in Bath. The intention is for our audience, whilst engaged emotionally in the personal challenges of both astronomers, to perhaps consider {consciously or even subconsciously} the concept of Time and Space. The character of Jess also offers a contemporary insight into the Herschel legacy which undoubtedly enriched the study of later astronomers and cosmologists. The premise of the play is that Caroline's concern for the astronomers of the future was a passionate driving force that fed into the rigor and exactitude of both her observations and her charts.This theme of Past and Future is fundamental to the play: we learn that Jess' daughter, in the midst of the Arab Spring, has become an intern at the new Library of Alexandria - and so the memory of Hypatia {350AD to 415AD}, the very first female astronomer, also ripples through the piece. Ultimately by linking the role of women through the ages with the study of the universe, we hope to show that the search for understanding and truth is the meeting point for all women, men, scientists and artists, and that this meeting point deepens our experience of the world we live in and nourishes the human psyche; that the challenges of the female astronomer are relevant to all women" the audience choked on the bared emotions and the wonderment of people seeing deep space for the first time" The Guardian, John Vidal on STELLA'S performed reading in May 2012. Our tour includes Greenwich Theatre, The Old Market in Brighton, The Mill at Guildford's Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, The Rose Kingston, BT Studio at Oxford Playhouse and Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough. At present, we are touring to eleven venues, with an expected total of twenty performances and an audience total of 2,320. However if funding is achieved from the STFC, we will be able to expand STELLA'S tour considerably; we hope to play at least two festivals this Summer and already have strong interest from theatres for the Autumn.