Denver: Theater from Space

Denver: Theater from Space

I have a thing for intriguing lobby displays, the kind put together for a particular show and that add something to the experience. For last night’s performance of When Tang Met Laika, a play about space flight (among other things) which takes place on the space station (among other places), the lobby display was particularly apropos -– it consisted of quotes from astronauts and cosmonauts about the view from orbit. Perhaps it was because I started the day shoveling snow to get underway from Washington where we’ve had an historic blizzard, but the one quote that struck me most forcefully was:

“We were flying over America and suddenly I saw snow. The first snow we ever saw from orbit. I have never visited America. But I imagined that the arrival of Autumn and Winter is the same there as in any other place and the process of getting ready for them is the same. And then it struck me that we are all children of our earth.” — Cosmonaut Aleksandr Alexandrov, Soyuz T T-9, Soyuk T-13.

– Brad Hathaway, ATCA excom, Washington, D.C.