Valborg Theatre hosted the play “Beautiful, Useful, True” for its world premiere this past week from Feb. 26 through March 2. The play, created and directed by assistant professor of theater arts Elizabeth Parks, detailed the life and discoveries of Eunice Newton Foote, the female scientist who pioneered the discovery of the greenhouse effect.
Foote was not only the first scientist to make the discovery that certain gases warm under sunlight but also an early female scientist to have her physics research published in a scientific journal. Despite Foote’s achievements, little was recorded about her personal life, and she is rarely acknowledged for her work.
Parks said she first had the idea for a project to tackle the issues of the climate crisis before she had learned about Foote. When she discovered the breakthrough scientist, she was certain she had found the right narrative.
Parks first began developing the play in the summer of 2022 before she began her time at App State in the fall of 2024. To supplement the information unknown about Foote, Parks turned to the faculty within the science and political departments of App State.
“I knew more what I didn’t want it to be than what I wanted it to be,” Parks said at a panel following the final performance. “When we first started out, we had no script.”
She said they started with nine scenes they knew needed to be in the play and then
built others based on the content of interviews conducted with faculty members of the Pathways to Resilience Team, which enacts App State’s Quality Enhancement Plan, an area of student learning selected every 10 years in alignment with institutional needs and priorities. Speaking with them gave “Beautiful, Useful, True” the wings it needed to take flight.
Parks worked alongside the cast to go through the pages of interviews to craft a performance that not only told the story of Foote but also gave voice to modern educators and experts. The cast members were honored in the playbill not only as performers but also as “Devisors” who played crucial roles in the formation of the play and the portrayal of their characters, many of whom had little records of their personal lives.
The result was a show that charged questions within the audience on concepts of feminism and climate responsibility. A concluding panel at closing night on Sunday allowed them to exchange ideas with not just the cast and Parks but also with faculties whose voices and ideas were featured in the content of the play.
At the play’s end, the cast members stepped forward to remind the audience that human beings are dependent on the Earth, and the land will go on without them. Ultimately instating a responsibility to climate stewardship, activism and an urge to elevate the voices of underrepresented experts like Foote.
