Bill Barnert is proud of the organizations he has helped to co-found, including the AIDS Action Committee, Brown University TBGALA, and the Cambridge Men’s Group. Bill has been speaking for SpeakOUT since 1980, co-hosted SpeakOUT TV, and hosted PrideTime for Boston cable. He has sung with the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus, danced with the ReneGAYdes, drummed with the Freedom Trail Marching Band, and has volunteered at CRLS’s GSA, Project-10 East. He currently sits on the City of Cambridge LGBTQ+ Commission. Professionally, Bill is a User Experience Designer, and is active in BostonCHI. In what’s left of his spare time, he is an amateur actor, comedian & playwright.

Michael Bronski is an author, professor and independent scholar. He has been involved in gay liberation as a political organizer, journalist, writer, editor, publisher and theorist since 1969. His “Queer History of the United States” won the 2011 Lambda Literary Award for Best Non-Fiction as well as the 2011 American Library Association Stonewall Israel Fishman Award for Best Non- Fiction. His last two books are – “You Can Tell Just By Looking: And 20 Other Myths about LGBT Life and People” (coauthored with Ann Pellegrini and Michael Amico) and “Considering Hate: Violence, Goodness, and Justice in American Culture and Politics” (coauthored with Kay Whitlock) – were both nominated for Lambda Literary awards. He is currently at work on a YA edition of “A Queer History of the United States” which will be published next year, and “The World Turned Upside Down: The Queerness of Children’s Literature.” He is Professor of the Practice in Activism and Media in the Studies of Women, Gender, Sexuality at Harvard University.

Marjorie Saunders is a retired Professor of Writing and Literature at MassBay Community College and a current member of the Cambridge Women’s Commission.

After the Saturday, April 21 and May 19 at 3pm performances join us for a Scholar Social with Owen Gingerich.

Owen Gingerich is an emeritus professor of astronomy and the history of science at Harvard University and an emeritus senior astronomer at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. He is a leading authority on the 16th-century Polish cosmologist Nicholas Copernicus and the 17th-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler.

He spent three decades tracking down and examining surviving copies of Copernicus’ seminal work, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, in which Copernicus first proposed that the Earth is not fixed but revolves around the sun. Owen wanted to determine who owned these copies, what marginal notes they made while reading the book, and what they thought of Copernicus’ then-radical idea. In his quest, Owen traveled to libraries throughout North America, Europe, China, Japan, and Australia, and he chronicles these adventures in The Book Nobody Read.

Owen has been vice president of the American Philosophical Society—America’s oldest scientific academy—and he has served as chairman of the U.S. National Committee of the International Astronomical Union. He collects rare astronomical books, especially ephemerides (books that give the day-to-day positions of astronomical objects), and an asteroid—”2658 Gingerich”—has been named in his honor.

Long interested in the science-religion dialogue, Owen gave the 2005 William Belden Noble Lecture at Harvard’s Memorial Church (published as God’s Universe) and he has served as a trustee of the John Templeton Foundation.

Come hear readings of ten-minute plays inspired by the Drake Equation, which tries to estimate the number of alien civilizations humanity might be able to communicate with. Inspired by the adventurous spirit of astronomers celebrated in The Women Who Mapped the Stars, playwrights from the Catalyze Playwriting Group (a product of CC@MIT) will be on hand to lead conversations about the plays and this remarkable theory. Seating limited: first come, first served. Note: There are two dates for this event April 21st and 28th at which different plays will be read.

2018 Catalyst Collaborative@MIT Symposium: Boundaries

Hosted by the CC@MIT Student Advisory Council

Sunday, April 22 12pm-1pm and 4pm-5pm

Boundaries: we can set them, break them, be limited by them and move beyond them. This theme is found in both both art and science. Join a panel of local university students (from MIT, Northeastern, Harvard and Tufts) as they discuss their projects at the boundaries of science and the arts, and then join a conversation with them about ideas inspired by the world premiere of The Women Who Mapped the Stars at Central Square Theater. The conversation will also touch on themes of diversity and inclusion. After the matinee performance of The Women Who Mapped the Stars, the conversation will continue with actors from the cast and guest scientists. During the week of the Cambridge Science Festival, an interactive poster on display in the Central Square Theater lobby will invite audience members to express their opinions on diversity, inclusion and access in STEM and the arts.

12:00PM-1:00PM – Panel Project Presentations and Conversation

2:00PM-4:00PM – The Women Who Mapped the Stars

Directly following show – Post-Show Conversation

Speakers

Harvard graduate student in Astrophysics, Chantanelle (Chani) Nava, is a Montana native who earned her B.A. in Physics with an Astronomy focus from the University of Montana. Chani performs research detecting and characterizing small planets around stars other than our sun, with the goal of detecting habitable planets that could potentially host life as we know it! Her love and interest in astronomy is fed largely by the natural universal wonder the science evokes and the connections it allows her to make with members of the community. When Chani isn’t doing something science related, she can be found focusing on one of her other loves: her family and friends, the outdoors, music, food, activism, and her cat, Kiki.

Ashley Villar is an astrophysics PhD student at Harvard University. She studies eruptions, explosions and collisions of stars in our night sky. Ashley is originally from Vero Beach Florida, before moving to Massachusetts to earn a degree in physics from MIT. She was inspired to study astronomy after reading the popular book, Death by Black Hole, while in middle school. You can read more about her work at ashleyvillar.com

Be amongst the first to see The Women Who Mapped the Stars and join the cast and crew to celebrate with wine and refreshments after the show.