At SPARC Theater, you can take in ‘Silent Sky’ under an actual starlit sky

Radhika Rao as Margaret Leavitt (left) and Elena Wright as Henrietta Leavitt in SPARC Theater's "Silent Sky."

When the astronomer Henrietta Leavitt opens “Silent Sky,” she has a scientist’s offbeat flair for describing the heavens: They’re “all that is far-off and lonely and stuck in the deepest dark of space. Dark but for billions and billions of … exceptions.”

At SPARC Theater’s production of the play, written by San Francisco playwrightLauren Gunderson,audiences will be able to assess Henrietta’s description for themselves: The show is staged under the open evening air, surrounded by rows of grapevines at Darcie Kent Vineyards in Livermore.

The real-life Leavitt (1868-1921) made extraordinary contributions to science, discovering how to measure the distance to faraway stars — which reminds us of our humble place in the universe. “We can skip star to star across the deepest space until we know … exactly where we are,” as Henrietta puts it in the show.

Jennifer Le Blanc directs a promising cast that includes Elena Wright, who makes text twinkle, as Henrietta.

"Silent Sky": 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Sunday, June 29-July 2. Through July 9. $18-$60. Darcie Kent Vineyards, 7000 Tesla Road, Livermore. 925-443-2273.https://sparctheater.org

  • Lily Janiak
    Lily JaniakLily Janiak is The San Francisco Chronicle’s theater critic. Email: ljaniak@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LilyJaniak