Rex McGregor
Site search
  • Rex McGregor
  • Archive
  • Awards
  • Short Plays
    • Threatened Panda Fights Back
    • The Birds Are Feeding Me
    • Grow Up, Juliet
    • Grace Finds Kel
    • Monstrous Villainy
    • Garage Invasion
    • Ebook Meets Treebook
    • Rich Pickings
    • Prepper's Nightmare
    • Tickle That Dragon
    • Happy Husband Hunting
    • Amazons of Tomorrow
    • Flight of the Cows
    • Gruesome Gift
    • Fight for the Apron
    • She's Got His Number
    • Don't Flip Your Snood
    • The Tarantula's Pet Frog
    • Proud Mary and Prejudiced Lydia
    • The Mama and the Papa
    • Unromantic Bouquet
    • Prisoners' Choice
    • Ambitious Cutlery
    • Surfing in Munich
    • Eleventh Night
    • Your Server Tonight Is Cassandra
    • Shelter in Comfort
    • The Girl Who Would Rather Not Grow Up Just Yet
    • Feline High-Rise Syndrome
    • This Particular Crevasse
    • The Name of Action
    • Fit for a King
    • A Supportive Wife Supports Her Wife
    • Cathy Haunts Catherine
    • Lullaby for a Librarian
    • Cobra Versus Tiger
    • Fingers and Toeses
    • Dueling Judges
    • Rival Pseudonyms
    • Mother of Chemistry
    • Taking the Plunge
    • Played for a Sap
    • Cheerleaders and Cheeseburgers
    • Wayward Seniors
    • Marked for Deletion
    • Bigger Move
    • Catching Hendrix
    • Ngā Wai o Te Tairāwhiti
    • Stage Fights Screen
    • Restoring Romeo
    • President Charles Evans Hughes
    • Almost Immortal
    • Pushing Buttons
    • Friendly Skirmish
    • Rabbit Warns Gannet
    • Librarians Embrace Fiction
    • Money Talks Too Loud
    • Never Say DEI
    • Miriam's Mother
    • Retha's First March
    • Trumpettes Anonymous
    • Table in the Air
    • Fruitful
    • Thrill of the Circus
    • Rivals-Slash-Friends
    • Triple Helping
    • Throw Me Out
    • One Wish Each
    • Welcome to Belarus
    • Phony on a Twig
    • Val's Remedy
    • The Top Seed and the Poor Seedlings
    • Helga Goes Bats
    • Disorderly Beulah
    • Henry the Seventh (If Shakespeare Was Honest)
    • Pseudo-Human Resources
    • Grounding Santa
    • Help Found
    • Subversive Action Chick
    • Rasha and Abd
    • Horror at Sea
    • Aleema the Boy Girl
    • Who Remembers Éponine’s Sister?
    • Fire Up
    • Marietta's Ultimatum
    • Love Those Cockroaches
    • Murder Runs in Our Family
    • Public Deaths
    • Gab Irish-Like
    • Orpheus Floats
    • Fraught Hike
    • Guts Out
    • Sugar Horror
    • Becky and Tom
    • Vegan Vigilantes
    • Phenomenals Anonymous
    • Zany Planets
    • Battle for the Front Seat
    • Kindness Pays
    • Natasha Toughs It Out
    • Beauty Store Saboteur
    • Fiery
    • Worst Villain
    • Save the Sasquatch
    • Her Daughter's Doll
    • We Aren't Aliens
    • Cushion
    • Party Crasher on a Mission
    • Stuck Fast
    • Next Door Nativity
    • Estella Expects a Lot
    • Canary Now
    • Enemies on a Date
    • The Flames of Patience
    • Graffiti Yarn
    • Family Tries
    • Tina, Queen of Scots
    • Squicky
    • Squishy
    • Squirmy
    • Squirrelly
    • Thin End
    • Higgledy-Trilogy
    • Speechless
    • Geordie Heroine
    • Siege Ready
    • Inventive Dream
    • Elegant Rescue
    • Handling Temptation
    • The Fruits of Lust
    • Horrifying Mary
    • Possible Fathers
    • Refloat Our Whale
    • Swinging Campers
    • Fiery
    • Subversive Action Gal
    • Chat with That
    • Jane Errant
    • Smile on a Mask
    • Two Divided by One
    • Two Minus Infinity
    • Two Times Ex
    • Skull Against the Sky
    • The Ghostly Christmas Pest
    • The Ecstasy of Carmel
    • All's Fair in Tug of War
    • Unsuspecting Donor
    • Toothlessness Bites
    • Lost Judgment
    • Help Full
    • Help Less
    • Quick Light Touch
    • Kurt and Orla
    • They Never Leave Their Wives
    • Turn of the Tidier
    • Tui and the Immortal
    • The Fifth Street Women's Building Takeover
    • Best Chance Café
    • Roasting Death
    • Absconding Patient
    • Fountain of Youth
    • The Power of Enchantment
    • Clash of the Lorde Fans
    • The First Christmas Presents
    • Grandis, Juliette
    • Herding Catastrophes
    • Penelope's Feast
    • Extreme Decluttering
    • Courtesy
    • Twilight of the Grizzly
    • Thirteenth Night
    • Love and Acoustics
    • Creaky
    • Croon
    • Boot's Trip
    • Nature Soothes
    • Fern and Her Father
    • Abigail Wades In
    • Tempting Sabah
    • Unfurl
    • Eradicting Apathy
    • Revitalized
    • Who Loves More
    • Chest-Beating for Gentlemen
    • That's No Mannequin (That's His Wife)
    • Put Down the Gun
    • Shredded
    • It Could Be Anyone
    • Skull
  • Plays
    • I Love an Earthling
    • Queen Takes Emperor
    • Sunshine in Every Window
    • Margaret Thatcher Changes the World
    • Tricky Intervention
    • Girls Rock the Classics
    • Izzy Sticks With It
    • Lady Godiva Doesn't Ride Again
    • Birds and Money
    • Three Weird Mornings at the Library
    • New Partners
    • Thena and Taz
    • Rogue Flight
    • Manipulative
    • Honest Shakespeare
    • Miss Imposter
    • Impending Intimacy
    • Poor Doug
    • Female Scientists to the Rescue
    • Girls on the Brink
    • Grow Up, Girls
    • Brink Time
    • The Sword and the Gown
    • Touchy
    • Safe Trip
    • It's Ours! The Fifth Street Women's Building Takeover, 1971
    • Pacific Caper
    • Stale Obsession
    • A Hard Fifty Years' Night
    • Nine Plays Wonder
    • Clash of the Delusions
    • Who's Manipulative?
    • Margaret Thatcher Hits New Zealand
    • Wind Above the Water
    • Plights
    • Choose
    • All Aboard
    • Lady Godiva Womans Up
    • Unpardonable Virtues
    • Nude with Tuba and Skull
    • Triple Fandango
    • Snatched
    • Hour of Misjudgement
  • Audio plays
    • Contains Nudity
    • This Particular Crevasse
    • Suspect Sleuths
    • Wind Above the Water
    • Lament of the Failed Alcoholic
    • Above the Stave
    • Finesse
    • A Flying Visit
  • Monologues
    • None of Your Blarney
    • Olive Struts and Frets
    • Sweet Fright
    • Farsighted
    • Tabby's Plague Diary
    • Boot's Vacation
    • Nourishing Marion
    • Missing Applause
    • Will Kemp's Turn
    • Frida Kahlo Must Be Jewish
    • An Educated Palate
    • Fern's Plan
    • Sweetness and Light
    • The One Waving
    • The Reluctant Barker
    • Shakespeare's Protestation
    • The Frog-Footman's Statement
    • Cassandra Vents
    • A Bride for the Pope
    • Beaver Loves Otter
    • Derrick's Tactic
    • Post-Baby Body
    • Innocent Glutton
    • Phoenix on Ice
    • Carriage Horse Chat
    • Kia Orāna, Joe
    • Tightlipped
    • Elizabeth's Revenge
    • The Movement You Need
    • Officially Recovered
    • The Roses or the Bat
    • Lady Godiva's Daughter
    • Friar Oswald's Confession
    • Let's Just Chill
    • Erica, Oswald and Shakespeare
    • Speechless
    • The Clueless Bishop
    • Your Attention, Please
    • Paddy's Spiel
  • Links
  • Contact
  • Published Scripts
  • Musicals
    • BonanzaLear
    • Possible Fathers
    • Space Dancers
  • Books
    • Laugh with Jesus
    • Cuisine for Angels
  • Collaboration
    • Dinah Might

Female Scientists to the Rescue



Hypatia, Marie Curie and Marie-Anne Lavoisier use their wits to save the day.

Characters
NICLAS KOPERNIK, 18, Polish astronomy student
HYPATIA, ageless Egyptian scientist
MARIA PAULA, 18, Polish postulant nun
PIERRE CURIE, 45, French scientist
MARIE CURIE, 37, Polish scientist
SAPIA (EUSAPIA PALLADINO), 51, Italian conjurer
ANTOINE LAVOISIER, 50, French scientist
MARIE-ANNE LAVOISIER, 36, French scientist
LOUIS SAINT-JUST, 26, French politician
NANOU (MARIE-ANNE LENORMAND), 21, French fortune teller
 
Doubling
The play may be performed with a cast of 4 actors:
Mature female actor: HYPATIA, MARIE, MARIE-ANNE
Young female actor: MARIA PAULA, SAPIA, NANOU
Mature male actor: PIERRE, ANTOINE
Young male actor: NICLAS, LOUIS              
  
Settings
Scene 1. HYPATIA. 1491. A student’s lodging at the University of Kraków, Poland.
The stars move across the sky in an orderly fashion. But sometimes the planets stop and go backwards! This doesn’t make sense to young Niclas Kopernik. He seeks help from Hypatia, an astronomer who lived a thousand years earlier.
 
Scene 2. MARIE CURIE. 1905. Psychological Institute, Paris.
Marie Curie prides herself in being a rational scientist. Unfortunately, her husband has fallen under the spell of a notorious “medium”. To protect Pierre’s reputation, Marie must expose the fraud.

Scene 3. MARIE-ANNE LAVOISIER. May 8, 1794. A cell in the Conciergerie Prison, Paris.
The Reign of Terror is at its height. Antoine Lavoisier, “The Father of Chemistry,” is facing the guillotine. Marie-Anne, his wife and laboratory partner, desperately tries to save his life.

Each of the plays in the collection has been produced or read online:
​
Hypatia -
  • Zany Planets (online reading)  P.A.G.E.S., New York, NY, July 13, 2021
  • Zany Planets (online reading)  Moving Parts, Paris, France, January 24, 2021, directed by Stephanie Campion 
  • Zany Planets (online performance) Crafton Hills New Works Festival, Yucaipa, California, May 9, 2020, directed by Jared Diamond
  • Crazy Planets (reading) ICRL Playwriting Competition, Princeton, New Jersey, April 4, 2020, produced by Jeff Dunne
  • Zany Planets (staged reading) New Play Contest,The Chameleon Theatre Circle, Ames Center, Burnsville, Minnesota, November 5, 2016, directed by ​Jenny Marie Midnight-Thunder Moeller
    • ​Winner of the THEATRE FOR YOUTH category
Marie Curie -
  • Table in the Air (online reading)  Writing Room, Indie Film Theater Network, Los Angeles, California, June 27, 2023
  • Table in the Air (online reading)  Migration Stories, First Fridays, ​The Barrow Group, New York, NY, November 4, 2022
  • Table in the Air (online reading)  LA Play Reading, Los Angeles, California, November 28, 2021
  • Table in the Air (online reading)  The Salon, Pipeline-Collective, Nashville, Tennessee, November 15, 2021, directed by Robert Chambers
  • Table in the Air ​(online reading) ​ ​Tiger's Heart Players, New York, NY, ​October 31, 2021
  • Table in the Air (online reading)  Anything Goes! Theatre Lab, ANDTheatre Company, New York, NY, October 27, 2021
  • Table in the Air (online reading)  Gulf Coast Playwrights Circle, Tallahassee, Florida, ​October 19, 2021
  • Table in the Air (online reading)  P.A.G.E.S., New York, NY, March 30, 2021
  • Table in the Air (staged reading)  Dragon Eggs, Dragon Productions Theatre Company, Redwood City, California, January 17, 2021
  • Table in the Air (online reading)  Moving Parts, Paris, France, November 22, 2020, directed by Stephanie Campion 
  • Table in the Air  (workshop/reading) Stage to Page, Playwrights' Studio, Centre of Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, UK, November 25, 2019, directed by Calum Beaton
Marie-Anne Lavoisier -
  • Mother of Chemistry (online reading) ​ P.A.G.E.S., New York, NY, May 9, 2023
  • Mother of Chemistry 365 Women a Year Festival,White Mouse Productions, Tallahassee, Florida, ​November 20, 2020, directed by Linoi Chemla
  • Mother of Chemistry (online reading) Moving Parts, Paris, France, October 11, 2020, directed by Stephanie Campion