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About
Astrolabe

Named for the child of Héloïse and Abalard, Astrolabe is led by John Goldsberry, an entertainer and writer for over 50 years, with 100+ songs in the BMI catalogue, two published novels, and freelance design and consulting work for the theme park industry. Theater is the other side of his life, and these productions are where he loves to join forces with other creatives to produce new works for the international stage.

Our current project, the one that started the company, is “In The Tent of Stars.” It is set in a traveling Midwestern tent theater in 1918, where a Broadway star mother, wounded by her manipulative husband and stage partner, hides her child, who sees the stage as the only thing that lets him be seen. But neither mother nor son realise that the tent has been traveling the globe for 800 years, pulling in the lost and helping them to find the truth in themselves.

Created with Composer Jay Gaumer and director/dramaturg Miss Hazel Jade over the last five years, it is activly seeking additional investment in both the US and the UK

It had its first public staged and costumed reading just a few miles from its setting in Kansas City, Missouri, in August 2026, and is heading to the UK in 2027 for the next stage of development.

More details can be found on the shows website: www.tentofstars.com.

"Everyone in this show is hiding behind a character they put on. Me too, the happy-go-lucky kid. Guess what? We’ve all been broken, and so have you. So maybe an astrolabe can point the way, but you still have to move. You have to decide what’s too painful to keep hiding and deal with it."

Alex

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After giving up on New York City acting dreams, Gretta accepts the job of teaching drama "Someplace normal like Peculiar." Missouri, in this case. Where everything is perfect and everyone knows their place. But when the town wants her to recruit a famous star for their community play, she can't admit she padded her resume. She turns to her regular customer from her former dinner job, but is the town ready for her choice?
When Alfred loses his job because of cutbacks at NPR, he and his wife Martha are forced to throw themselves on the mercy of the father of her last late husband who runs a performing arts academy in NYC. But the old man mistakes her new young looking husband for his grandchild, and vows to leave the school to him provided Martha never remarries. Now Alfred must join the school impersonating his own teenaged son. But a scheming uncle wants the school for a development site and threatens to blow his cover during the opening night of Death of a Salesman Jr, the musical. Based on a nearly forgotten 1894 farce.