The Harvard Computers: Staged Reading

Pioneer Works

Join us on October 25 for a staged reading of the pilot episode of the new original series, The Harvard Computers.

Your $10 ticket to this event is redeemable towards a free drink at our bar or a credit at our bookstore.Join us on October 25 for a staged reading of the pilot episode of the new original series, The Harvard Computers. The full cast of actors is to be announced closer to the event date.The reading will be followed by a conversation with Graham Sack, Jennifer 8. Lee, Janna Levin, and other special guests.The Harvard Computers—an episodic TV project written by Graham Sack, recipient of the 2021 Sundance Institute and Sloan Episodic Fellowship—tells the true story of a group of extraordinary women who braved gender and class discrimination to become America’s first female astronomers, shattering the glass ceiling in science and higher education.The series centers around Williamina Fleming, a twenty-one-year-old Scottish immigrant abandoned by her husband while pregnant after arriving in Boston. With nowhere to turn, Williamina takes a job as a maid in the home of brothers Edward and Henry Pickering, a pair of Harvard professors obsessed with discovering the secrets of the night sky—one through hard facts, the other through fanciful theories. Recognizing Williamina’s intelligence and frustrated by the complacency of his male graduate students, Edward hires her into the Harvard Observatory, where she assembles a group of unlikely scientists—working class women from Boston’s immigrant ghettos and the first graduates of America’s newly formed women’s colleges (e.g., Henrietta Swan Levitt, Antonia Maury, and Annie Jump Cannon).At a time when many believed women lacked intellect and had no place in either education or science, the group’s labor over the successive years (1878-1919) established a beachhead for women in science and laid the foundation for the most important astronomical breakthroughs of the 20th century.Series development has been generously supported by the Sundance Institute, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and Pioneer Works.About Graham SackGraham Sack is an award-winning filmmaker and academic whose work explores the intersection of storytelling, scientific discovery, and technological innovation. He is the founder of Chronotope Films and the recipient of the 2021 Sundance Institute / Sloan Episodic Fellowship for The Harvard Computers. Graham previously adapted and directed George Saunders’s best-selling novel Lincoln in the Bardo (winner of the Man Booker prize) into an immersive film that was shortlisted for an Emmy Award for Innovation in Interactive Programming, funded and distributed by the New York Times, and called one of the “top 5 must-see virtual reality experiences of the year” by Time Magazine.His screenplay Septillion to One made the Hollywood Blacklist and sold to Madison Wells Media in one of the most competitive spec sales of the year with Mark Romanek attached to direct. His other projects have received support from Google, Samsung, and Felix &amp; Paul Studios and appeared at Tribeca Film Festival, SXSW, New York Theater Workshop, Sotheby’s, and Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona. His other screenplays won the Final Draft Big Break Competition and placed in the finals for the Nicholl Fellowship.Graham began his career acting on Broadway in Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers and in TV shows such as Law &amp; Order and New York Undercover. He holds a PhD in English &amp; Comparative Literature from Columbia University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a BA in Physics from Harvard College. He is an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis and is on faculty in the Film and Media Program at Johns Hopkins University. He is an alum of New Inc., the New Museum’s art, design, and technology incubator, and a member of the Writers Guild of America, Writers Guild of Canada, Screen Actors Guild, and Actors Equity Association.Learn more about his new media production company Chronotope Films <a href="https://www.chronotopefilms.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">here</a>.Due to Covid-19, we can’t be as free-spirited with the guest list as we used to be. Tickets are $10 to reserve your spot, but the $10 can be used as a credit towards a drink at our bar or a purchase in our bookstore.If you cannot afford a ticket, please do send us a note at info@pioneerworks.org and we will add you to the guest list, no questions asked.While we cannot refund the $10, please do let us know if your plans change so we can open up spots on the waitlist.We look forward to welcoming you back to our building.Beginning on September 3, in accordance with the New York City mandate, <a href="https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-vaccines-keytonyc.page" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Key to NYC</a>, visitors (age 12+) must show proof of COVID-19 vaccination to enter Pioneer Works. Be prepared to show your proof of vaccination upon arrival at Pioneer Works. Please review our updated Health and Safety Policy <a href="https://pioneerworks.org/visit/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">here</a>.

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The Harvard Computers: Staged Reading

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The Harvard Computers: Staged Reading

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