A Central Square Theater Family Member, 1935–2026
Central Square Theater mourns the loss of Brit d’Arbeloff, a long-time dear friend whose vision and generosity helped shape who we are today. Brit passed away peacefully at her home in Brookline on May 8, 2026, at the age of 91, surrounded by her loving family.
A Founding Friend of Our Theater
Brit’s connection to Central Square Theater runs as deep as our foundation itself — she has been part of our story since we broke ground in 2007. In 2017, she activated that legacy in a lasting way by underwriting the Brit d’Arbeloff Women in Science Production Series, a program that has invited our audiences and actors to step into the worlds of women exploring everything from the cosmos to DNA, honoring the challenges these women faced in their fields alongside their groundbreaking discoveries.
Under Brit’s support, the series has produced seven plays — three world premieres — and a month-long digital festival in Spring 2021. A body of work that has given voice to women in science on our stage and reflected the very qualities Brit embodied throughout her own life: intellect, curiosity, and the refusal to accept limitations.
The Life Behind the Legacy*
Brit played many roles in her joyful and impressive life — Engineer, Advocate, Spouse, Mother, Philanthropist, Theater Enthusiast, to name only a few. Born in Chicago in 1935, she entered Stanford University in 1953 at a time when women in engineering were exceedingly rare, and went on to become the first woman to graduate in mechanical engineering from Stanford, finishing first in her class. She later earned a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, working on heating and cooling systems for high-speed aircraft, moon launches, and space travel.
As one of the few women in her field, Brit often spoke candidly about being turned away from job interviews simply because employers assumed “Brit” was a man — an experience that undoubtedly shaped her lifelong commitment to championing women in science, a commitment our theater has been honored to help carry forward.
Alongside her engineering career, Brit was a self-taught folk guitarist, a sculptor, a writer, and — fittingly for a woman who gave so much to the stage — a devoted theater enthusiast. With her husband, Alex d’Arbeloff, founder of Teradyne Corporation, she built a program of transformative philanthropy that touched MIT, Stanford, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Museum of Science, and many more institutions she believed in — Central Square Theater proudly among them.
Known affectionately by family and colleagues as “Queen d’Arb,” Brit will be remembered here, and everywhere she left her mark, as a woman who devoted her life to building a better world with her intellect, wit, warmth, and determination.
In Her Honor
Central Square Theater is forever grateful for Brit’s belief in the power of theater to illuminate the stories of women in science, and for the legacy she leaves in every production of the Brit d’Arbeloff Women in Science Series still to come.
*This tribute draws on and credits the full obituary published by Bellodeau Funeral Home and the remembrance published by MIT’s Women’s and Gender Studies program