German Nuclear Scientists Gather on Stage for Operation Epsilon

Heisenberg: It’s like a pre-war house party – one of those house parties in a play, that’s cut off from any contact with the outside world, where you know the guests have all been invited for some secret sinister purpose.

Copenhagen Act One, Michael Frayn, 1998

In July 1945 the Allied Forces imprisoned ten scientists associated with the German wartime nuclear programme in an English country house near Cambridge. For nearly six months the conversations between the captives were secretly recorded in an attempt to determine how close the Nazis came to developing a nuclear weapon.

The transcripts from Farm Hall were declassified in 1992, providing valuable source material for historians and writers intrigued by what happened there. The Farm Hall operation is depicted in Adam Ganz’s 2010 radio play Nuclear Reactions and provided important background material for Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen.

Operation Epsilon is a new stage play by Alan Brody depicting the internment at Farm Hall. It premiered at Central Square Theatre in Cambridge, MA, USA on 7th March 2013, produced by The Nora Theatre Company under the direction of Andy Sandberg. The company works with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop plays representing science in theatre.

The recordings made at Farm Hall were inconclusive about the true state of the Nazi nuclear programme. However, the reactions of the scientists to the news of the bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945 were enlightening, with Otto Hahn initially said to have considered suicide. Although the events at Farm Hall have been examined before, there seems to be sufficient dramatic material available to sustain new writing, making Brody’s new play an intriguing prospect.

Operation Epsilon runs at the Central Square Theatre in Cambridge, MA, USA until 28 April 2013.

Doing the Maths – Three New Productions of David Auburn’s Proof

David Auburn’s 2001 Pulitzer Prize winning play Proof depicts the relationship between a mathematics professor, his daughter and a PhD student. In the coming weeks a new production opens in London and two productions will be staged in the USA, making March 2013 the month to catch Proof on stage.

Previews of the Menier Chocolate Factory theatre’s production of Proof begin in London on the 14 March 2013, where it runs until the 27 April. Director Polly Findlay was recently profiled in the Evening Standard.

Proof is set in the Hyde Park area of Chicago, which also happens to be where the Court Theatre will be staging the play between 7th March and 7th April 2013, directed by Charles Newell. The Peter’s Alley Theatre Company will also be performing Proof between 15th and 30th March at the Theatre on the Run in Arlington, Virginia, USA.

Performance of Dava Sobel’s Copernicus Play in US Virgin Islands

Dava Sobel’s 2011 book ‘A More Perfect Heaven’ about Nicolaus Copernicus includes a short play called ‘And the Sun Stood Still’. It imagines Copernicus’ meeting with Georg Rheticus in 1539 and the events that may have led Copernicus to publish his theory that Earth revolves around the the sun.

A_More_Perfect_HeavenSobel will be speaking about Copernicus this week at an event on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It will be followed by a performance of ‘And the Sun Stood Still’, given by members of the Pistarckle Theater Company.

Despite previous public readings of the play, this is the first full performance of ‘And the Sun Stood Still’ of which StageScite is aware. The performance will take place at 7pm on Thursday 21st Feburary in Prior-Jollek Hall on the U.S. Virgin island of St. Thomas.

The 19th Feburary 2013 was the 540th anniversary of Copernicus’ birth, as marked by a Google Doodle.

‘The Altruists’: A New Play in Development by Menagerie Theatre Company

The Menagerie Theatre Company is developing a new production during 2013. ‘The Altruists’ is the latest play by Craig Baxter who also wrote ‘Let Newton Be!’ and ‘Re:Design‘ (based on the correspondence of Charles Darwin and Asa Gray).

The Altruists‘, which has already won Baxter the STAGE new writing award, concerns George Price, who performed ground breaking work with John Maynard Smith and Bill Hamilton in the 1960s on the mathematical and evolutionary basis of altruism.

The new play had its first public reading in October 2012 and a production is in development this year. Craig Baxter and director Patrick Morris will be speaking about the ‘The Alturists’ at a special event at Cambridge Science Festival on 23 March 2013.

Tom Stoppard Celebrated in the States

A new production of Tom Stoppard’s ‘Arcadia’ is underway in Indiana, USA  – a few weeks before the Writers Guild of America plans to honour the playwright for his contributions to screenwriting.

The Civic Theatre of Greater Lafayette’s production of ‘Arcadia’ is playing on Fridays and Saturdays until 2nd February. The town of Lafayette is about 100 miles southeast of Chicago.

Set across two centuries and encompassing mathematics, chaos theory, poetry and landscape gardening, Stoppard’s 1993 play is one of the classics of the science in theatre genre. The director of the Lafayette production, Rachel Lambert, describes ‘Arcadia’ further in this short video on the theatre’s website.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyCzrrNJeOw&w=560&h=315]

On the 17th February in Los Angeles Sir Tom Stoppard will receive the Laurel Award from the Writers Guild of America for his contributions to screenwriting. Stoppard’s prolific film writing credits include ‘Shakespeare in Love’ with Marc Norman (1993) and the 2012 film adaption of Tolstoy’s ‘Anna Karenina’.