Mary Anning and her Sisters in Science

1pm May 1st 2022
Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis
FREE ENTRY – JUST TURN UP!!!
Photo by Helen Vincent

A family friendly semi-staged performance of music
by electric voice theatre
with British Sign Language interpretation and Touch Tour

A moving mini music-drama by Judith Bingham, featuring Mary Anning herself, is at the centre of this staged concert highlighting the many women of science who lived in her day – some of whom joined her in Lyme Regis. The music of Mary Maxwell Campbell takes us round the world to meet many more of her scientific sisters in a musical romp; there are frogs and trowels; absolutely no selling of sea-shells on the seashore; and for the audience a bit of digging too!

The performance is part of a series of
Voices for the Future Events for Lyme Regis Fossil Festival

12 noon – ‘What is a fossil and what did Mary Anning find?’  
A unique chance to hear this talk for children and families by  Emma Bernard Curator of Fossil Fish, Natural History Museum, which has inspired hundreds of children to create MEGASONGS about Mary Anning and Palaeontology on our “Fossil Detectives” school project which is continuing on the Jurassic Coast over the summer term.

12.45pm Touch Tour
An opportunity for visually impaired audience members to meet the performers; orientate within the Marine Theatre; and feel the props and costumes in the performance.

1pm PERFORMANCE
“Mary Anning and her Sisters in Science”

Performed by electric voice theatre singers
Frances M Lynch – Soprano, Artistic Director and Laurence Panter – Tenor

Music Programme

• Judith Bingham “Mary Anning, a history and a mystery” (2012) for solo voice, gravel and rocks – a study of the famous Victorian palaeontologist. Words by Mary Anning, Molly Anning, Alfred Lord Tennyson and many more…
• Frances M Lynch
  • “Trowelblazers” written for Lyme Regis Fossil Festival 2017, for solo & recorded voices; including Annie Laurie by Alicia Spottiswoode, Lady John Scott (1810 – 1900)
  • “NOT Mary Anning – She sells sea shells on the sea shore” (2017) for mixed voices – Tongue Twister by Terry Sullivan – 1908
• Dorothy Howells (1898 – 1982) “Two Frogs” for voice and piano
• Mary Maxwell Campbell(1812-1886) “The Mole and the Bat” for voice & piano; words adapted to allow us to travel the world visiting Mary Anning’s Sisters in Science:-
  France – Émilie du Châtelet: Holland – Dr Aletta Jacobs: Germany – Emmy Noether: Italy – Agnesi Sisters: Austria – Hedy Lamarr: Russia – Sofya Kovalevskaya: America – Katherine Johnson: Africa – Wangari Maathai: England – Mary Anning
  
  

  

  

  
  

2.30pm “The Queen Of Slime Moulds – Gulielma Lister in Lyme Regis”
Mary Anning isn’t the only important woman scientist associated closely with Lyme Regis, there were many, including Gulielma Lister (1860-1949), whose family spent their summers here.  She was the world expert on extraordinary minuscule creatures called slime moulds that are now at the cutting edge of research into artificial intelligence and molecular genetics. This fascinating talk by our Science Historian Patricia Fara was born of our first online events in 2020 when the pandemic forced us all out of theatres.

“Voices for the Future”  seeks to discover, honour, and promote female voices past and present and to inspire, guide and build diverse VOICES FOR THE FUTURE.

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