It’s hard to top playwright Siena Marilyn Ledger’s insight into their craft: “I like to think that art can give light to what’s ultimately inside the soul.” Ledger’s “Man and Moon,” which opens tonight at Moxie Theatre, shines its light on two characters sharing a waiting room at an oncology unit. Aaron , a transitioning man, is a breast cancer patient. And 12-year-old Luna , a lover of astronomy, is the daughter of a woman who is receiving cancer treatments.
“We just listened and we learned a lot about all the other things that you don’t necessarily think about cancer affecting.” At the same time, said Ledger, “When we were at those support groups I saw that it was a very woman-centric disease. I wanted to explore someone who maybe didn’t fit into that specific narrative.” Thus the character of Aaron, who finds out he has breast cancer while “somewhere in the middle of his journey in terms of his expression and transition.