Around these parts, re-enactors are usually portraying figures from the French and Indian or Revolutionary wars.
For the first installment of the 2019-20 History Dinner Theater Series, the Foster and Muriel McCarl Coverlet Gallery at Saint Vincent College ventured a little further back in time.
On Sept. 14 in the Fred Rogers Center on the Unity campus, dinner theater guests went back about 400 years to spend the evening with early astronomer Galileo Galilei.
Traveling from Massachusetts to portray the Italian scientist was Mike Francis, a physical science and physics teacher and formerly a lecturer at the Charles Hayden Planetarium at Boston’s Museum of Science.
In 17th-century costume, Francis led guests through a program titled “The Starry Messenger,” in which he acts as Galileo presenting a public lecture on discoveries made through his newly devised spyglass.
The name of his presentation is the English translation of Galileo’s “Sidereus Nuncius,” a short astronomical treatise published in 1610.
Gallery curator Lauren Churilla welcomed guests including Bill and Judy Scheeren, Dennis and Diane Persin, Helen Carson, Pat Yasurek, Larry and Pat Smitley, C.J. and Kathy Valero, Marie Zanotti, Rick Kunkle, Robin Jennings, Tina Angelo, Veronica Findley, Bill and Joan Stenger, Charlotte Hein and Todd and Maria Meyers.
Next in the series, on Oct. 25, Sherrie Tolliver of Women in History will re-enact the life of Rosa Parks. For information and registration, visit mccarl gallery.org.
