MANILA -- Repertory Philippines couldn’t have chosen a better play to coincide with National Women’s Month.

"Silent Sky," written by America’s most produced playwright, Lauren Gunderson, revolves around Henrietta Swan Leavitt whose work with Cepheid variable stars laid the groundwork for opening up the universe.

The ensemble is constellation of the company’s finest actors led by Cathy Azanza-Dy, whose star hasn’t dimmed one bit despite a long absence from the stage. As the starry-eyed astronomer Leavitt, it’s the perfect role for Azanza-Dy to re-enter Repertory Philippines’ orbit.

“I’m honestly a nerd in real life. I could relate to that part of you inside that always needs to know answers, that always needs to ask questions, that’s hungry to know things, and it’s something at the very center of Henrietta,” she said.

This self-confessed nerdiness probably helped with her version of Henrietta. Listening to her effortlessly babble scientific speak without missing a step was amazing. Azanza-Dy's Henrietta is played with such grit that it’s glorious and poignant to see her finally stumble upon what she’s long been searching for.

Playing Henrietta’s sister Margaret is Caisa Borromeo, whose personal life gets cratered when her sister goes off to pursue her stellar ambitions. Borromeo’s Margaret is a frustrated woman who stays home in backwater America, living a relatively ordinary life pursuing music and taking care of her pastor father, not understanding her sister’s forays into the universe.

It’s touching how her frustration becomes wonder, and even understanding, as the gravity of Henrietta’s work pulls her in.

When Henrietta gets to Harvard, she expected to meet Dr. Pickering, the director of the Harvard College Observatory. Instead, she meets Peter Shaw played by Topper Fabregas, Pickering’s assistant, who unceremoniously dumps her into “Pickering’s Harem,” an all-woman group of stellar photography “computers” who pore over glass photographic plates that are produced by the telescope Leavitt desperately wants to get her hands on.

Fabregas is adorable as the just-as-nerdy, just-as-obsessed, and even-more-socially-awkward Shaw. When he fumbles his way into declaring his affection for Henrietta, there was an audible sigh heard from the audience. There’s a scene where Fabregas doesn’t even have to utter a word with his back to the audience that was just hilarious. Nonetheless, Shaw and Henrietta make such a complementary socially awkward pair that’s just entertaining to watch.

The two other members of “Pickering’s Harem” are Williamina Fleming, played with a delightful Scottish accent by Naths Everett; and Annie Cannon, the would-be supervisor of the group given such strength by Sheila Francisco. Everett injects the needed levity where it counts, while Francisco turns from cynic to reluctant supporter of Leavitt, and eventuallu to one of the suffragists who usher in women’s liberation movement effectively bared the changing times, especially for women, when "Silent Sky" was set.

Director Joy Virata confessed that she really wanted to direct this play. “I visualized the staging. And I saw how theatrically it could be staged,” she said.

She employs clever touches like using the Onstage orchestra pit as a lower floor with characters having to go up the stairs to reach the steampunk-furnished work area on a floor high above the observatory.

Set designer Joey Mendoza and lighting designer John Batalla painted a backdrop of stars that is used to great effect to mark time and place. Projections that mimic the northern lights, to a dimming night sky, to a star going supernova, the backdrop feels as if it is a living breathing character that just embraces the stage. Come to think of it, the supernova is a beautiful metaphor since a star is blindingly bright right before it fades away.

Gundersons tells a wondrous story of women. power and science. Besides Leavitt, Fleming and Cannon are all pillars in the science of astronomy. Fleming, who started out as Pickering’s maid, is credited with the discovery of the Horsehead Nebula. Cannon is cited with Pickering as the creator of the Harvard Classification System used to classify stars according to temperature that is still used today.

Repertory Philippines and the amazing cast of "Silent Sky" humanize these celestial characters and draw inspiration from their story.

Uplifting, witty, and unapologetically geeky, the brilliance of "Silent Sky" is that it makes music out of the science of the stars and brings it down to earth. Anybody can discover inspiration, find humor, and unearth their inner geek over the play.

I’ve been telling friends to watch this and to bring their kids. After watching this play, they may just find this sense of awe that may stop them from continuously staring down at their phones and instead, look up and find wonder by gazing at the stars.

"Silent Sky" runs until March 25 at Onstage Theater, Greenbelt 1, Makati City.