Manya

The Living History

of Marie Curie

About the Scholar/Presenter

For over 25 years, Susan Marie Frontczak has brought literature and history to life as a scholar, playwright & performer. She has created and performed ten different Living History programs and presented them across 43 of the United States and abroad — including performing Manya: The Living History of Marie Curie and A Visit with Marie Curie over 450 times to over 60,000 people in 34 states and nine countries. In dramatizing the life of Marie Skłodowska Curie, Susan Marie pays homage to their shared Polish heritage. Marie Curie’s perseverance in purifying a tenth of a gram of radium from a ton of pitchblende, in part, inspired Susan Marie to major in Engineering. She earned a B.S. in Engineering from Swarthmore College and a Masters in Software Engineering from the Wang Institute of Graduate Studies, and worked for fourteen years at Hewlett-Packard Company before pursuing full time writing and performing. Susan Marie has always viewed both science and art as complimentary outlets for creativity. It is her aim to reveal the human behind the scientist, while placing Dr. Marie Curie’s life and accomplishments in a memorable historical context.