Night Sky

Drama / Cjharacters: 3m, 3f / Unit Set This extraordinary drama premiered to acclaim in a New York production directed by Joseph Chaikin and starring Joan MacIntosh. It was subsequently produced Off-Broadway in a revised version directed by Daniella Topol and featuring Jordan Baker in the central role. NIGHT SKY theatrically explores what Steven Hawking has called the two mysteries remaining to us: the brain and the cosmos. When she is hit by a car, the brilliant and articulate astronomer Anna loses her ability to speak, a condition known as aphasia. What emerges from her mouth is a hodge-podge of unconnected words alternately confusing, funny, original and wise -- and sometimes all four. In a series of brief, often comic episodes, the play follows Anna through her illness and ultimate acceptance of herself - a personal triumph, despite a continuing infirmity - and dramatizes the impact of her changed circumstances on her lover, her teen-aged daughter, and her professional life.
Everyone will be touched by the themes this play considers -- language, inner and outer space, the challenges of a devastating affliction, the consolations and ordeals of family life and, most of all, the universal hunger and need for communication. The play has been extremely popular with audiences and has been translated into Spanish, Catalan, French, Hebrew and German. "Susan Yankowitz's Night Sky is a rare thing: a play with a mind. It is also about the mind as universe, where language is internal astronomy. It shows us that more than hearts can be broken." -Variety "A moving and poetic experience. Like the sky, it is a play of seemingly infinite depth." - Los Angeles Times