The Sound of Neutrons
March 9, 2020
The hills are alive, with the sound of… neutrons?
This March, “The Sound of Neutrons,” an original musical written and directed by Phyllis Heeney will be performed by the Deep River Players at the Childs Auditorium of Mackenzie Community School in Deep River.
Based on real events, the musical centres around a female physicist who was unable to get a job at Chalk River labs in 1945 to work on the ZEEP reactor because she was a woman.
The musical is written and directed by Phyllis Heeney, a retired Canadian Nuclear Laboratories employee. Phyllis took great care to base the story of her musical on the experiences of real women from the Deep River and Chalk River area: Maria, a physics professor from Bratislava who was unable to get a job as a physicist; Nancy, a woman who did get a job as a physicist but was never seen as equal by her male peers; Maraget, the first woman ever hired at Chalk River, whose desk chair was a keg of nails.
The musical celebrates the entry of women into the nuclear workforce and the strides they made for not only other female workers, but for Canada’s science and engineering fields as a whole.
The show runs on March 12 & 13 – takes a pause for March Break – and finishes its run on March 26, 27, and 28. Opening night, March 12, is also the kick-off of the Town of Deep River’s 75th anniversary celebrations. A catered reception will follow the performance on opening night, which will be attended by local area politicians, advocacy organizations, historical societies, and AECL and CNL employees (past and present).
Details regarding the purchase of tickets can be found on the poster above.
