THEATRE + COMEDY

In recognition of the 2009 Darwinian anniversary, the The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center co-presents a solo play about fossilist Mary Anning, Blue Lias, or The Fish Lizard's Whore.

Written and performed by Claudia Stevens (pictured), with music composed by Allen Shearer.

Claudia Stevens, who wrote and will perform “Blue Lias, or the Fish Lizard's Whore,” portrays 19th century English fossil collector Mary Anning. In the play, Anning is waiting to receive a small honor while she reviews her life and the indignity of her position within the all-male scientific community. Anning faced years of opposition from people who sought to discredit her on the grounds that her fossil findings were incompatible with their faith or because she was a woman.

Blue Lias is a sequence of layers of limestone and shale laid down between 195-200 million years ago and is prevalent in the area in which Anning collected.

Claudia Stevens, performer-playwright, was born in Redding, California of Czech and Austrian parents. She graduated summa cum laude from Vassar College; UC, Berkeley, where she was awarded the Alfred Hertz Prize in piano; and Boston University, receiving the Doctor of Musical Arts under Leonard Shure. She has taught at Williams College and the College of William and Mary, where she is Adj. Assoc. Prof. of piano. Early in her career as pianist Claudia collaborated with established and emerging composers, recording and performing at major venues including Carnegie Recital Hall. She also was the featured artist on several NPR “Performance Today” broadcasts. Claudia established a second career as musician-actor and playwright, receiving grants from the International Theater Institute, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Virginia Commission for the Arts (twelve consecutive grants), and residencies including the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, RS9 Szinhaz in Budapest and the Baltimore Theater Project. She is author of a dozen monodramas, several of which are published in recent issues of the journal Exquisite Corpse.

Allen Shearer, Composer, has received many awards in music, including the Aaron Copland Award and residency, the Rome Prize Fellowship, a Charles Ives Scholarship, an Alfred Hertz Fellowship, four residencies at the MacDowell Colony, several grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, including one for the creation of his opera The Goddess, and grants from Meet The Composer. His choral works have been performed in nearly every state of the U.S. as well as in Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia, and South Africa.

Remarks about Blue Lias by Claudia Stevens, playwright/performer
In addition to aspects of gender and religion in relation to science, I am interested in exploring the intersection of artistic and scientific experience, in particular the role of imagination and intuition in scientific discovery. From the literary standpoint, I’m having fun also with The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles’ postmodern novel set in his - and Anning’s - home town of Lyme Regis. Fowles was fascinated by Anning’s life and career. His unpublished monograph about her suggests that she may have been the inspiration, if not the model, for his feminist heroine, Sarah Woodruff. And so, I have devised a character nourished in turn by Fowles’ character of Sarah and by Meryl Streep’s consciously self-dramatizing performance as Sarah in the film.

The performance is supported by the University of Houston, Office of the Associate Vice President for University Relations, the College of Natural Science and Mathematics, the Department of Biology and Biochemistry, the School of Theatre and Dance, the Women’s Studies Program and the Friends of Women’s Studies, and the Mitchell Center.