“The Little Years” Shines Light on Women in STEM

“We are large. We are cosmic. We are universal. We will not be made small,” Kier W. Zimmerman ’19, an inactive Crimson news editor, writes about women, particularly those interested in STEM, in her director’s note for “The Little Years.” Fittingly located in the Science Center’s SciBox, “The Little Years” focused on the obstacles women face when they pursue science. The stage transitions and lights were particularly instrumental to their production of the show and clearly demonstrated the passage of time, allowing the theme of gender discrimination to shine in a thought-provoking play.

The play centers around science prodigy Kate (Celia Kennedy ’20) and follows her through the majority of her life. Kate, brilliant and obsessed with understanding time, lives in the shadow of her older brother, a poetic genius. In the opening scene, 14-year-old Kate is harassed by her schoolmates. She starts to lose interest in school, let her grades slide, and talk back to teachers. Soon after, her chauvinist principal informs her mother that she must transfer from high school to vocational school.

“The Little Years” travelled through several years in the span of a two-hour show, and the team’s use of the stage was natural and professional. The audience remained standing for the majority of the play and moved around the room as scenes changed location. The room was large enough that four main areas of the stage could plausibly represent different locations or times and allowed for minor set changes while that area was not being used. Although the location of the main action on stage changed frequently during the course of the play, the focus remained clear thanks to well-timed and thought-out lighting designed by Charlie O’Mara ’20. The lighting and transitions between different areas of the stage worked together to allow movement and clarity in the play.

In a play focused on such important themes such as gender discrimination and the role of women in science, the play progressed through history in a way that showcased both improvements over time and shortcomings that still remain. The play begins in the 1950s, and the gender discrimination was downright shocking to the modern viewer. Kate’s school principal (Damian Liu ’20) made the outrageous claim that women cannot do math or science, saying, “Women can’t rotate 3D objects in their brain.” At the very end of the play, some 45 years later, significant progress is made in the treatment of women: Tanya, Kate’s niece, is able to win numerous awards in the sciences.