Description
Mary Spletter
60 minute drama
1 man, 3 women, 1 either plus 4 extras that can be double cast
About the play: Arches, Balance and Light imagines a quiet day in the later life of Julia Morgan inside her San Francisco home. A groundbreaking architect, Morgan designed more than 700 buildings over a long career and is widely known for Hearst Castle in San Simeon. Though her work reshaped American architecture, her single goal was always to become a world‑class architect. Now retired, she agrees to meet an unexpected visitor who claims a personal connection to her past. The conversation draws her back through the choices that shaped her life as the play moves between that meeting and earlier scenes in Paris, where she fought for her education and her work.
Here’s what they’re saying about the play:
- One of the best new plays we’ve ever done. . .captures the passion of Julia Morgan. . .touched audiences. –Alex Ross, Business Manager and Board Member, Ross Valley Players
- A love story wrapped in a mystery, disguised as a memory—a remarkable legacy is brought to vivid life. –David Templeton, North Bay Bohemian
- A script that is engaging, suspenseful, mysterious and also illuminating. –Leslie Courier, managing director, Marin Shakespeare Company
- A fascinating historical fiction about the life of the great architect, Julia Morgan – a kind of who-done-it that poses questions that dig deep into the psyche of this pioneering feminist. –Jay Manley, award-winning Bay Area Director
- Strangely comforting. –Eric Ivory, Audience member
- A sophisticated, fully developed piece of historical fiction…a stylistic gambit that works wonderfully. –Barry Willis, president of the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, Marin Independent Journal
- There is something thrilling about this production. –Patrick Thomas, Talk in Broadway
About the playwright: Mary Spletter wanted to see how far she could stretch her journalism degree. During her eclectic career, she has been a medical and science writer throughout the University of California, a reporter, free-lance writer and author. When she retired, she combined her fascination of Julia Morgan designed buildings with her love of theatre to produce Arches, Balance, and Light. She lives in a historic building in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and dog.
