Writer Visionary Pioneer Survivor
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Writer Visionary Pioneer Survivor *
Thea von Harbou’s extraordinary journey out from under the shadow of the men who would take the credit for her genius.
Woman in the Moon celebrates the loves, struggles, and sacrifices of a woman pivotal to modern filmmaking. The full scope of her achievements are largely unknown outside of the German-speaking world, but here, Harbou comes to life in an epic musical set against the backdrop of cultural censorship, two world wars, and genocide.
The Play
Harbou at the height of her career as an actor.
A Young Fritz Lang.
Act One
In the Penitentiary of Time Museum, a docent introduces three incarnations of Thea von Harbou: the Author, the Celebrity, and the Survivor. Visitors’ questions awaken these avatars, transporting us to the past. Thea sells her first story as a child and her first novel as a teen. In her twenties, she acts successfully while writing best-sellers. She marries actor Rudy Klein-Rogge, who demands she quit acting to focus on writing. After WWI, Rudy enters cinema and pressures a reluctant Thea into writing a screenplay. The experience transforms her; she realizes movies are her destiny. Soon paired with Fritz Lang, she finds him repulsive, but their creative synergy is magic. She divorces Rudy and marries Fritz, who demands her screenwriting exclusivity. Their 1920s films bring them global fame, but Fritz's serial infidelity guts the marriage. In 1933, she meets her true love, young Indian academic Ayi Tendulkar. She divorces Fritz just as the Nazis seize power and they face an uncertain future.
Act Two
Thea must navigate strict filmmaking rules imposed by Josef Goebbels, who bans thought-provoking art in favor of pure entertainment. She cleverly works around the system to maintain her artistic integrity. In 1938, Nazi miscegenation laws force her to send Tendulkar back to India. She stays close to Berlin's Indian community, who pressure her to join the Nazi party to gain leverage to protect them. After the war, she is arrested (along with all Party members) and banned from cinema for almost four years. Stripped of her celebrity and her livelihood, she performs a heroic act: voluntarily becoming a Trümmerfrau to clear Berlin's heavy war rubble by hand. When the ban lifts, she returns to film work. In 1954, she is finally honored at the Fourth Berlinale. Leaving the event—the recognition she deserves almost within her grasp—she tragically falls, breaks her hip, dying two days later. We return to the museum, where her monumental legacy remains largely forgotten today.
Ayi Ganpat Tendulkar and Thea von Harbou
Harbou as a Trümmerfrau.
Sample the Music
The link on the right takes you to a medley of tunes from the show arranged in no particular order to give you a sense of the score’s lyrical beauty.
A versatile, female-forward ensemble. A highly original, dramatic score. A unique theatrical experience.
Award-winning creators composer John Mucci and author Richard Felnagle have have ultilized decades of theater and television experience to craft this two-act play requiring a minimum cast of six women and four men.
Click on “Learn More” for details about the production.
Why a musical play about Thea von Harbou?
Thea von Harbou was an extraordinary woman whose loves and struggles and defeats and triumphs form a story of almost Shakespearean proportions. She is the story of the 21st century but in the first half of the twentieth century, and only a musical play can fully realize all the dimensions of her life, loves, and hardships. Today, she is known, if she is known at all, as the wife of director Fritz Lang and author of Metropolis and his other German films. However, she was so much more: At various times, she was an actor, an author, a director, a screenplay writer, an advocate for women’s reproductive rights and for animal rights, and more. She spent her entire life pushing up against the “glass ceiling” of the patriarchy of Weimar Germary, and then the authoritarian patriarchy of Nazi Germany. But she survived. And this is her story.
“There can be no understanding between the hand and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator.”
— Thea von Harbou, Metropolis
Let’s talk more about how to bring Woman in the Moon to your venue.
Ready to host a reading? Interested in a workshop? Questions about the script, score, or materials? We’d love to talk to you about our show!