Blue-Sky Boys

Play title: Blue-Sky Boys

Author (s): Deborah Brevoort

Agent: Elaine Devlin, Elaine Devlin Literary Agency

elaine@edevlinlit.com

Funder: EST/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science and Technology Project

Genre: Comedy/Drama

Primary Discipline: Astronomy

Secondary Discipline: Technology

Scientist (s) and Historical Figure (s):

Jed Berman – Lead engineer of the NASA team,

Vencel von Volp – Mathematical prodigy and engineer

C.J. Caldwell – Rocket engineer

Howard Haggerty – MIT scientist

Charles Townes – American physicist, created the maser

Galileo – Italian astronomer, physicist, and engineer in the 16th century

Character Breakdown:

Jed Berman – Lead engineer of the NASA team,

Vencel von Volp – Mathematical prodigy and engineer

C.J. Caldwell – Rocket engineer

Howard Haggerty – MIT scientist

Charles Townes – American physicist, created the maser

Apollo – Olympian god of the sun and light

Icarus – In Greek mythology Icarus and his father Daedalus build wings from feathers and wax to escape Crete. In the escape Icarus flew too close to the sun, melting his feathers tragically killing him

Louis Leakey – British paleoanthropologist who discovered the first fossilized Proconsul skull.

Galileo – Italian astronomer, physicist, and engineer in the 16th century

The Red Baron – Manfren von Richthofen, an ace pilot in world war 1. Shot down over Vaux-sur-Somme, France

Buck Rogers – Fictional character created by Philip Francis Nowlan.

(Character Breakdown provided by http://w.aislesay.com/PA-BLUESKY.html)

Setting: Landis, Virginia and Houston, Texas

Time Period: 1960’s

Synopsis of Play: When President Kennedy announced that America would send a man to the moon, the job fell to a group of maverick engineers who, until that moment, were the outcasts of the American scientific establishment. Thrust into the limelight and lacking a road map for accomplishing the President’s mandate, this group developed an unorthodox, imaginative process called “blue-skying.” They turned to inspirations such as Buck Rogers comic books, stories from Greek mythology, Louis Leakey’s writings on paleontology and fictional and historical characters such as Snoopy, Galileo, Icarus and the Red Baron.

(Synopsis provided by New Play Exchange)

First Performance Date: 2005

First Producer: Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project

Performance History: Premieringas a reading for the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Ocktoberfest Festival and First Light Festival in 2005, Blue-Sky Boys has gone on to be performed in three different states.

Links:

https://newplayexchange.org/plays/1632/blue-sky-boys