Performance artist Claudia Stevens is premiering a dramatic piece Sunday about Mary Anning, a paleontologist in 19th century England who, because of the sexism of the time period, did not receive due credit for her scientific discoveries - the performance will take place 3 p.m. in Scott Hall on the College Avenue campus, and is titled "Blue Lias."
Education curator of the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum Alfredo Franco said Stevens will perform the piece in a one-person, monologue style complemented by minimal costuming and props to suggest the time period and mood of the piece. In addition, unique experiments with lighting will portray emotions of the drama.
The drama will be accompanied by music created by Allen Shearer, a renowned musical composer of the University of California, Berkeley.
"[Mary Anning's] struggles and passion for knowledge will be brought to life, as well as her sorrows and professional frustrations," Franco said.
"Audiences are usually quite captivated by these one-women performances," Franco said. "It should be very exciting."
Franco said he was very impressed with Stevens when she came to perform another one-person drama about a talented woman in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II for the Zimmerli Art Museum last spring. The drama was about real life figure Fanja Fenelson who performed in the Auschwitz women's orchestra.
Franco said he believed Stevens is drawn to historical women figures who receive little to no credit for astounding talent. To act out these characters, he said, she studies their lives extensively.
"Not only does she do all the biographical research on them profoundly - it's the way she brings the character to life and the whole context of her life and career just using one actor-herself," Franco said.
Franco was impressed enough by her Fanja Fenelson performance, called "An Evening with Madame F," to invite her back this spring.
According to a prepared article, Mary Anning is the most noteworthy fossilist and geologist of the 19th century, but was not credited as such within her lifetime. In the drama, Steven portrays how she is grieved over the use of her scientific contributions without crediting her by male scientists. Ill beyond recovery, she waits to receive a small honor by authorities, weighted with the knowledge that she deserves more.
Steven's drama is sponsored by the Zimmerli Art Museum in support of the "The Feminist Art Project," a University program including exhibitions and activities about the female gender in the arts since 2005.
The performance is free for students and 3$ for general admission.
Claudia Stevens is a pianist, conductor and composer as well as a performance artist. She has taught piano at the College of William and Mary since 1977 and has held a career in performance art in recent years. Stevens has been receiving grants from the International Theater Institute to go on tour. Since 1994 she also has received grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and a NEA "New Forms" grant.
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