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- Kittie Knox Plays; Photo by Benjamin Rose Photography.
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- Silent Sky. Photo by Nile Scott Studios.
The Kittie Knox Plays
Produced by Plays in Place with MassBike
Three one-act plays by Patrick Gabridge, Claire Gardener, Kirsten Greenidge
Directed by Michelle Aguillon
Music direction by Nicholas Chieffo
Choreography by Hampton Richards
Performances in Cambridge, Milton and Boston, MA
The plays are FREE, but registration is required.
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Silent Sky
Produced by Central Square Theater, a Catalyst Collaborative@MIT Production
By Lauren Gunderson
Directed by Sarah Shin
Sound designer and composer: Kai Bohlman
Choreography by Peter DiMuro
Performances in Cambridge, MA
Playbill online
Critique by Kitty Drexel
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The 2025/2026 theatre season began in earnest for this queen theatre geek with two turn-of-the-century plays about two local headstrong, heart-set trailblazers: daredevil cyclist Kittie Knox (1874 – 1900) and astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868-1921) and her colleagues at the Harvard Observatory. I had the great fortune of watching both productions on Saturday, Sept. 13. Like a curated tasting of fine wines, the productions have their distinct differences but offer something for every playgoer.
The Kittie Knox Plays are three one-act plays within a 90-minute production which dramatically reinterprets the life and whirlwind career of Katherine Towles “Kittie” Knox (an enthusiastic Hampton Richards) – Boston’s own biracial, trouser-wearing, gender and racial boundary-pushing cyclist born in 1874. These delightful plays are a reduction and summary of Knox’s incredible albeit brief cycling career. In Play 1, we see Knox’s passion for cycling for the first time, learn the story of Boston’s cycling craze, and watch Knox’s community rally around her for stirring controversy amongst Boston’s echelons of white cycling society. In Play 2, we see the scandal Knox caused after attending the League of American Wheelmen’s (LAW, a whites-only institution) National Meet in Asbury Park, New Jersey. In Play 3, Knox attends the LAW ball; she dances despite the segregationist politics depleting opportunities for Black people in the U.S. and the tragedies affecting Knox’s personal life.
Rebekah Brunson and Hampton Richards; Photo by Benjamin Rose Photography.
Rebekah Brunson, Beyoncé Martinez, Nathan Johnson, Joshua Lee Robinson, Jennifer Drummond, Tom Berry, Em Sheeran, and Dustin Teuber complete the plucky featured ensemble. Trigger warnings: historical racism, historical sexism, and excuses for both that survive to this day.
Director Michelle Aguillon carefully staged her cast with expert timing and care for their persons on and off their bicycles. Aguillon’s cast looked both safe and chic on their speeding death contraptions. Actors rode quickly, but more impressively, pedaled slowly in character, thereby showing us their control on a bike and their prowess as performers. Female characters wearing dresses held their trains aloft by the hand to prevent tangling in the wheels and to display a more ladylike demeanor. As far as I could tell, they obeyed all traffic laws and minded the other persons using the bike path.
To me, their most impressive feat was Play 3’s bicycle dream ballet. With choreography by Hampton Richards set to the music direction by Nicholas Chieffo, cast members danced with and on their cycles to the spunky musical stylings of a brass and banjo trio. The cast promenaded with their cycles, bowed and dipped in time with the band. It was a charming diversion that referenced the social customs of the day and the ways in which Knox defied them.
Were I to find fault, I’d caution the cast to take better care of their voices. Trucks and other humans frequently drowned out actors with their noise. The human voice will not win against a six-wheeled delivery truck. It’s better to pause and save your instrument. Robinson as Robert Teamoh did this beautifully in Play 3 while a truck idled in traffic: he paused while the truck grumbled by, remained in character, and resumed seconds later when he sensed we might hear him again.
In Cambridge, the performances were conducted between local businesses in the Lechmere area along a public walkway and behind a restaurant. We got to see happy dogs on walks, children at play, and hear cars, humans, and animals going about their daily lives as the performance went on. There were pigeons and insects, modern cyclists who weren’t part of the production cutting through the staging area, and bright sunshine to warm our day. It was occasionally loud, hot, and distracting, but that’s city living for you. Bring sunscreen and bug spray if you’re inclined. Patrons shouldn’t bring a picnic because they won’t sit still long enough to eat it, and your snacking may distract the actors.
The plays are performed outdoors and require patrons to travel short distances between locations along paved walkways. Patrons should wear shoes they can walk in. Folding chairs are provided for all attendees at each site. For those concerned about sun exposure, Plays in Place generously provided water and cups between the first and second plays. It was a thoughtful courtesy on a warm day.
A hop, skip and a jump from The Kittie Knox Plays near the Lechmere T stop, Silent Sky at Central Square Theater celebrates the work of three women scientists, one composer, and a socially awkward, golden retriever boyfriend named Peter. In it, we learn that nothing and no one is ever gone and are reminded that it is vitally important to never date coworkers. Trigger warnings: historical sexism, agnostic spirituality, empathy.
Henrietta Leavitt (Jenny S Lee) joins the Harvard Computers, represented by Williamina Fleming (Lee Mikeska Gardener) and Annie Cannon (Erica Cruz Hernandez), to chronicle the stars in the Pickering Laboratory. Despite dismissal from her male supervisors, Leavitt records her own observations of Cepheid stars and changes the way we look at the universe forever. Kandyce Whittingham joins as Leavitt’s sister, Margaret Leavitt. Max Jackson plays fictional fuckboy Peter Shaw with more kindness than this character deserves. Director Shin and her cast prove that these women may have been lost to history for a time, but they are nobody’s footnote.
Jenny S. Lee and Max Jackson. Photo: Nile Scott Studios.
Playwright Lauren Gunderson has a distinct voice and style, which she has curated over her prolific career. She knows her audience and is good at what she does. Yet, Silent Sky has its foibles: Gunderson expends a lot of this play on unnecessarily long exposition; she over-explains the world of her heroines: Leavitt, Fleming, and Cannon. Director Shin and sound designer & composer Kai Bohlman move through these lags with well-timed musical sequences to motivate the cast’s dialogue and the audience’s inspiration. The best of these sequences features the minty fresh alto of Kandyce Whittingham singing “For the Beauty of the Earth” by Folliot Sandford Pierpoint.
Like The Kittie Knox Plays, Silent Sky also has a romantic dream ballet. Jenny S Lee floats and twirls through DiMuro’s choreography in the arms of Max Jackson like a STEM Disney princess. Leavitt isn’t collecting birds and small rodents as she labors domestically; she’s gathering compassionate scientists with lab space to her side. I can almost hear Harvard and MIT students sigh orgiastically in reply.
The end of the play inspires sighs of a different temperament. Gunderson falters by bluffing through several false ending beats to the show before finally caving to her audience’s demands to leave the theatre. She resolves the tension around one character, giving her cast an opportunity to end the show, only to introduce another character’s resolution arc, and another until there’s no characters left for history to kill. It feels like she’s circling the drain. Henrietta Leavitt is Gunderson’s main character, and the existence of Fleming, Cannon, Shaw, and even Henrietta’s sister Margaret exists to support Henrietta. We come to care for each of these characters, but it’s Henrietta Leavitt’s ascension to the annals of astronomy and our hearts that drive the play. While Silent Sky has an appropriately poetic finish, it isn’t clean and that’s frustrating for the audience.
I was watching Silent Sky on Saturday evening, and realized its events felt eerily familiar. Local companies Merrimack Repertory Theatre and Flat Earth Theatre both produced Silent Sky in 2017, but the reviews were assigned to other Geeks. So, I moseyed over to the CST website to plumb its past seasons and found my answer in The Nora’s production history. Silent Sky may look and sound familiar to CST patrons because it produced The Women Who Mapped the Stars by Joyce Van Dyke, another play about the Harvard College Observatory’s 19th-century Computers, in 2018.
I’m not going to tell you if Gunderson’s play is better than Van Dyke’s play. Oodles of playwrights borrow and repeat ideas. Watch Silent Sky and decide for yourself. Although it’s likely, if you found The Women Who Mapped the Stars pleasantly inspiring in 2018, you’ll likely enjoy Silent Sky today.
A small note: Shin, Bohlmam, and DiMuro cast this show creatively using actors who best suited their roles. Leavitt, Fleming and Cannon are very dead; they won’t care who plays them onstage. I approve of CST’s rebellion against the status quo, and you should, too.
Correction 9/17/25: A previous draft of this article misattributed a Benjamin Rose Photography image of Rebekah Brunson and Hampton Richards on bicycles to Beyoncé Martinez and Hampton Richards. The photo credit is now correct. We apologize for the error.
