BLUE LIAS – or the Fish Lizard’s Whore

a solo play written and performed by Claudia Stevens, music composed by Allen Shearer

“ . .  from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, 1859

Program Note
Claudia Stevens wrote the text for “Blue Lias” in 2005-6 while in residence at Brandeis University, as Visiting Scholar/Artist at the Women’s Studies Research Center. The piece deals with the clash of religion and science in nineteenth century England -  as well as issues of class and gender -  given expression in the life, personality and career of famed fossil collector Mary Anning.  Stevens gave the piece its first reading at Cornell University in fall, 2005 for an audience including the distinguished scientists Roald Hoffmann (Nobel Prize winner, chemistry) and Gerold Meinwald.  Its official premiere will be at the Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University on March 25, 2007.

Artist Bios
Claudia Stevens, performer-playwright, was born in Redding, California of Czech and Austrian parents. She graduated summa cum laude from Vassar College; UC, Berkeley, where she was awarded the Alfred Hertz Prize in piano; and Boston University, receiving the Doctor of Musical Arts under Leonard Shure. She has taught at Williams College and the College of William and Mary, where she is Adj. Assoc. Prof. of piano. Early in her career as pianist Claudia collaborated with established and emerging composers, recording and performing at major venues including Carnegie Recital Hall.  She also was the featured artist on several NPR “Performance Today” broadcasts. Claudia established a second career as musician-actor and playwright, receiving grants from the International Theater Institute, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Virginia Commission for the Arts (twelve consecutive grants), and residencies including the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, RS9 Szinhaz in Budapest and the Baltimore Theater Project.  She is author of a dozen monodramas, several of which are published in recent issues of the journal Exquisite Corpse.

Allen Shearer, Composer, has received many awards in music, including the Aaron Copland Award and residency, the Rome Prize Fellowship, a Charles Ives Scholarship, an Alfred Hertz Fellowship, four residencies at the MacDowell Colony, several grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, including one for the creation of his opera The Goddess, and grants from Meet The Composer. His choral works have been performed in nearly every state of the U.S. as well as in Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia, and South Africa.

Remarks about Blue Lias by Claudia Stevens, playwright/performer
In addition to aspects of gender and religion in relation to science, I am interested in exploring the intersection of artistic and scientific experience, in particular the role of imagination and intuition in scientific discovery.  From the literary standpoint, I’m having fun also with The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles’ postmodern novel set in his - and Anning’s -  home town of Lyme Regis.  Fowles was fascinated by Anning’s life and career.  His unpublished monograph about her suggests that she may have been the inspiration, if not the model, for his feminist heroine, Sarah Woodruff.  And so, I have devised a character nourished in turn by Fowles’ character of Sarah and by Meryl Streep’s consciously self-dramatizing performance as Sarah in the film.

See the Blue Lias proformances to date.