Finding Madame Curie

AN AWARD-WINNING MUSICAL ABOUT THE SCIENTIST EVERYBODY KNOWS … AND THE WOMAN NOBODY KNOWS

Book by Melissa Bell

Music & Lyrics by David Kurkowski

Question: What happens when a supremely talented and unstoppable woman meets a stodgy, misogynistic academic institution?

Winner of the Jackie White Memorial National Playwriting Contest 2020, FINDING MADAME CURIE tells the story of the scientist everybody knows and the woman nobody knows—the scientist who discovers radium and wins two Nobel Prizes, and the woman who dares to pursue her dream in a man’s world. But life in Paris isn’t the dream she imagined as Marie confronts anti-immigrant bias and outright misogyny. Left alone with two children after husband Pierre’s death, her carefully constructed world explodes in public outcry over her affair with a married French scientist. As World War I threatens France, Marie must use her discoveries to protect the world from destruction as well as save lives and heal her fractured family.

Answer: She wins 2 Nobel Prizes.

The year is 1875.  Russian occupied Poland. Czar Alexander II has prohibited girls from attending university. But young Manya is an exceptional student. She graduates First in Class but must work as a governess to support herself. To reach her potential she must leave behind her homeland, both the happy times with her family and the horrors of the Russian occupation.  She flees, buying a 4th class train ticket to Paris, the City of Lights, where she has been accepted at the Sorbonne.

When Marie arrives at her assigned lab at the Sorbonne, she is mistaken for the cleaning lady by Professor Pierre Curie.  As she navigates her way through a male-dominated academic world, she confronts gender bias at every turn. Despite these obstacles, Marie learns French, rises to the top of her class, and makes a revolutionary scientific discovery. But when the Nobel Prize for physics is announced, it is offered to Pierre, not Marie. But Marie has her supporters, especially in Pierre, and she prevails.

She marries her soulmate Pierre with whom she shares the Prize, and the couple have a family. While the public falls in love with Marie, her enemies - mostly male - jealously and maliciously plot against her advancement at every turn.

Left alone with two children after husband Pierre’s sudden death, her carefully constructed world explodes in public outcry after her affair with a married French scientist is revealed. A xenophobic mob runs her out of Paris and causes the Nobel Committee to consider canceling her second Prize.  However, she convinces the committee that her personal life should have no effect on her work and wins her 2nd Nobel Prize in Physics. She returns to the laboratory and devotes herself to her work.

WWI breaks out and Marie personally travels to Burgundy to protect her precious store of Radium from falling into the wrong hands. She joins her daughter Irene (herself a scientist) at the warfront, working heroically to save Allied soldiers with the mobile X-ray unit which she invented.  In the chaos of war, Irene goes missing.  When the two are finally reunited, they realize that the most precious things in life are easily lost and impossible to replace. Marie and Irene pledge to work side by side after the war.

The end of the play sees Marie in her prime, giving a lecture at her beloved Curie Institute in Paris, surrounded by her family and supporters as she encourages the next generation of women scientists to never give up.

It’s a great day for science!

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Finding Madame Curie has a cast of 10 principle singing roles, with an ensemble from 4 to 8 playing additional 41 minor speaking or singing roles.