photo by: Mike Yoder

Miranda Klugesherz portrays Henrietta, and Adrian Brothers portrays Peter during a rehearsal of "Silent Sky" Wednesday, April 12, 2023, at Theatre Lawrence.

Miranda Klugesherz, the star of Theatre Lawrence’s “Silent Sky,” expects that audience members will walk away from the show “feeling not just happy but having learned something.” And that, she said, is “the best kind of theater.”

Klugesherz herself certainly learned a lot playing the role of Henrietta Leavitt, who made one of the greatest breakthroughs in science at a time when women were largely shut out of higher learning — and public life generally. Leavitt’s discoveries, which paved the way for modern astronomy, came years before women were even thought competent enough to vote.

And yet: “I am willing to bet that most of the people in the audience have never heard of her,” Klugesherz said. “I hadn’t.”

“Silent Sky,” Lauren Gunderson’s acclaimed 2015 play based loosely on Leavitt’s life, is one of many recent attempts — “Hidden Figures,” about three African American mathematicians, is another — to correct the erasure of women’s contributions to history.

Leavitt, who worked at the Harvard College Observatory in the early 1900s, discovered a way to measure distances in space using photography. Her day job was working as a “human computer,” along with other women who were paid a minimal wage to measure the brightness of stars on countless photographic plates — a tedious but necessary chore that freed up male astronomers to do more high-profile work. The women were called a “harem,” their work was measured in “girl hours,” and they were not allowed to touch the telescopes, let alone gaze through them to behold the wonders of the universe.

That “computing” was Leavitt’s 9-to-5, but on her own time she arrived at the discoveries that in another era would have made her famous in the scientific community.

But far from glorifying the cliché of the solitary genius, Klugesherz sees Gunderson’s play as “a story about sisterhood and finding belonging where you didn’t anticipate finding it.”

photo by: Mike Yoder

Actors Miranda Klugesherz, left, as Henrietta, and Kelly Schellman, as Margaret, rehearse a scene from Theatre Lawrence’s production of “Silent Sky,” Wednesday, April 12, 2023.

Amid celestial explorations, the play also explores the relationships between women and competing views of fulfillment. Leavitt’s fictionalized sister in the play, played by Kelly Schellman, urges Leavitt to embrace a more traditionally feminine role in life — a “pull” that women can still feel to varying degrees over 100 years later, said Klugesherz, who juggles her real-life roles as director of the Kansas Food Action Network, a parent and a passionate devotee of community theater (“This is like maybe my 20th show in 10 years,” she said).

“Silent Sky” might ring a bell to Theatre Lawrence regulars. The play, directed by Penny Weiner, a retired professor from Washburn University’s theater department, was in the 2020 season lineup, but came to an abrupt end after just four rehearsals when the coronavirus pandemic struck. Now, three years later, the show is back with all but one of the original cast members — a testament, Klugesherz said, to “what a beautiful, collective effort” the production has been.

The intervening years have been “kind of a time warp” for the actors as they’ve kept in touch and experienced big life changes, Klugesherz said. She herself got married, had a baby and moved to Manhattan in that timespan, but her enthusiasm for the role of Henrietta never waned. When Weiner asked her if she was still game, despite being a new mom and having to commute two and a half hours for rehearsals, Klugesherz said heck yeah.

“It’s crazy, but it’s worth it,” she said. “Oh my gosh, it’s so worth it.”

“Silent Sky” is scheduled to open Friday at 4660 Bauer Farm Drive, and will have multiple performances through April 23. For information about tickets, call 785-843-SHOW (7469) or go online at theatrelawrence.com.

Folks who attend this Sunday’s matinee can stay for a panel discussion after the show titled “Women Hold Up Half the Sky: Astrophysicists and feminists discuss Henrietta Leavitt and her remarkable times.” The panel will feature Barbara Anthony-Twarog, professor emerita of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas; Hume A. Feldman, professor and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at KU; and Ann Schofield, professor emerita of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at KU.

photo by: Mike Yoder

Actors Juliet Fuller, from left, as Annie, Miranda Klugesherz as Henrietta and Beth Dearinger as Williamina rehearse a scene from “Silent Sky” Wednesday, April 12, 2023, at Theatre Lawrence.