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
https://dailygazette.com/article/2016/03/18/blue-sky-boys-whimsical-mash–science-history
http://w.aislesay.com/PA-BLUESKY.html
Entered by: Anna Galanides
Photo/Visual Research with citations











