The Half-Life of Maire Curie

The Half-life of Marie Curie revels in the power of female friendship as it explores the relationship between these two brilliant women, both of whom are mothers, widows, and fearless champions of scientific inquiry. In 1911, Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discovery of the elements radium and polonium. By 1912, she was the object of ruthless gossip over an alleged affair with the married French physicist Paul Langevin, all but erasing her achievements from public memory. Weakened and demoralized by the press lambasting her as a “foreign" Jewish temptress and a home wrecking traitor, Marie agrees to join her friend and colleague Hertha Ayrton, an electromechanical engineer and suffragette, and recover from the scandal at Hertha's seaside retreat on the British coast. The Half-Life of Madame Curie, a new play by the playwright Lauren Gunderson was recently performed Off-Broadway. Lauren Gunderson is a playwright, screenwriter and short story author from Atlanta, GA. She received her BA in English/Creative Writing at Emory University, and her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch, where she was also a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. Lauren was recognized as the most produced playwright in the United States by American Theatre Magazine in 2017 and 2019. The staged reading will be performed by the theatre company, Break A Leg Productions www.balproductions.org There will be a post-performance talkback by the actors and the director. Produced by Brian Schwartz, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, CUNY and Smitha Vishveshwara, University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign. Supported in part by the Forum on Outreach and Engaging the Public. Cosponsored by The Division of Astrophysics, The Division of Particles and Fields, Forum for History and Philosophy of Physics and the Committee on the Status of Women in Physics.