Q&A with Director Melinda Pfundstein on Silent Sky
Longtime Festival favorite Melinda Pfundstein returned to the director’s chair this season with her production of Lauren Gunderson’s Silent Sky. Throughout her years with the Festival, she has directed All’s Well That Ends Well, The Book of Will, The Merchant of Venice, Words Cubed’s The Virgin Queen Entertains her Fool, and a Shakespeare in the Schools tour of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Her acting credits include starring roles in Ragtime, Richard III, King John, The Winter’s Tale, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Taming of the Shrew, My Fair Lady, Les Misérables, Into the Woods, Love’s Labour’s Lost, King Lear, and Twelfth Night. She was also a past recipient of the Festival’s Michael and Jan Finlayson Actor Award.
In addition to her expansive Festival career, Pfundstein has also performed with Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Renaissance Theaterworks, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Skylight, Lake Dillon Theatre Company, First Stage Children’s Theatre, and Nevada Conservatory Theatre.
Pfundstein holds an MA in Arts administration from SUU, where she also served as an assistant professor of Theatre Arts.
The Festival: Why were you excited to direct this play?
Pfundstein: I love exploring parts of history that have been a bit buried in the history books or have gone wholly untold. Lauren Gunderson often writes such stories, using the parts that we think we know as a backdrop to explore the buried parts. I could not wait to bring my own daughters to learn about Henrietta Leavitt, Annie Cannon, Williamina Flemming, and their great contributions to science and our world.
The Festival: What challenges came with directing this play?
Pfundstein: No challenges to speak of. It was particularly delightful to co-create our physical and aural world with the designers, in hopes of bringing the audience’s senses online as we share space in the theater.
The Festival: In the design meetings, you noted that you want to explore the theme of maturation, of “expanding and discovering instead of shrinking.” Where did this idea come from?
Pfundstein: Silent Sky spans decades, beginning in the early 1900s, before the Suffragist movement, when Henrietta Swan Leavitt, a real-life “computer” of the stars wonders in Gunderson’s play, “I have questions, I have fundamental problems with the state of human knowledge! Who are we, why are we—where are we?” Henri’s journey to the end of her physical life is one of rooting into her knowledge, of speaking her discoveries into existence, of sharing her findings with her colleagues and then, long after her death to today, with the world. Aging is often thought of as a withering or fading away from the height of life. This story is a celebration of the exact opposite, as our characters’ wisdom, knowledge, impact, and legacy grow to create waves far beyond the limits of the body and mind on earth.
The Festival: How will light (both literally and figuratively) play a role in this play?
Pfundstein: Light and projection, designed for our play by Jaymi Smith, Tom Mays, and Joe Payne, will literally paint the picture of the galaxy and the various scene settings, as we navigate the characters’ journey to understanding the light of the stars. Henrietta Leavitt taught us to map the stars, and in the process of this telling of her life and contributions, we get to consider that there is wonder in our makeup and influence as human beings. As Henri says, “There’s a reason we measure it all in light.”
The Festival: What do you want audiences to take away from this play?
Pfundstein: I hope this story inspires our audience to consider the wonder in their own lives, the relationships they hold dear, and the legacy they hope to leave through the expression of their own light in the world. I believe that this play is an invitation to do just that. I invite audiences to lean into our characters’ journeys and perhaps a consideration of their own contributions in the world.
The Festival: How long have you been directing plays? How long have you been with the Festival? What draws you to be a director?
Pfundstein: I have been with the Festival for over 25 years, and I have been directing plays for about half of that time. The collaboration and dance between crafting big picture choices, combined with the moment-to-moment detail is thrilling to me. I find great joy in facilitating a creative space wherein our whole team can explore the limits of their own artistry. It is an honor to witness such creativity at work and to take hands with makers toward a common goal.
To purchase tickets to Silent Sky, visit bard.org or call 800-PLAYTIX. The play runs until October 5.
