Manya: A Living History of Marie Curie by Susan Marie Frontczak April 21, 2012 @ 8 p.m. Tickets - $16/$8 for ages 18 and under

This one-woman drama exposes the struggles and triumphs of Madame Marie Curie (née Maria Sklodowska) — an academically impassioned, vehemently private, fervently Polish scientist, mother, and teacher. From the political oppression of her childhood, to scientific emergence and fame to the tragedy that forced her into single motherhood as well as further world prominence, this is a life that challenges our assumptions about what one person can achieve and the responsibilities of science.

For 21 years Storysmith® Susan Marie Frontczak has brought literature to life, created stories from thin air, and honed personal experience into tales worth telling again and again. She plays in theatres, corporations, schools, libraries, and festivals internationally. Her original narrative scripts and stories include "Ground Hog" heard on Morning Edition, Colorado Public Radio; "Vanishing Voices" a collaboration with Planina Balkan Women's Choir; and "Two Hearts, Four Feet" a celebration of social dance to accompany the traveling Smithsonian exhibit "Paris in the Jazz Age." In dramatizing the life of Maria Sklodowska, Susan Marie pays homage to their shared Polish heritage. Susan, like Manya, enjoyed school, and promotes awareness that academic excellence can lead to outstanding achievement. Marie Curie's perseverance in purifying a grain of radium from a ton of pitchblende, in part, inspired Susan to major in Engineering, where she worked for fourteen years before pursuing full time writing and acting. Susan has always viewed both science and art as valid outlets for creativity. She believes that Marie Curie's inner complexity is not known, and deserves to be. It is her aim to reveal the human behind the scientist, while placing Marie Curie's life and accomplishments in a memorable historical context.

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