Month: February 2013

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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.

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‘Constellations’ and ‘The Effect’ Receive Multiple Award Nominations

Two new ‘science in theatre’ plays that have enjoyed mainstream success in London’s West End have picked up an impressive number of nominations in the ‘What’s On Stage Awards’ 2013.

‘Constellations’ by Nick Payne and ‘The Effect’ by Lucy Prebble have both been nominated in the Best New Play category with Sally Hawkins and Billie Piper each receiving Best Actress nominations for their respective performances.

The Royal Court Theatre’s production of ‘Constellations’ also picked up nominations for Tom Scutt’s set design and Lee Curran’s lighting design.

Both ‘Constellations’ and the National Theatre/Headlong production of ‘The Effect’ have been critically well-received and commercially successful during 2012/13, bringing physics and neuro-pharmacology to the West End stage.

The winners of the ‘What’s On Stage Theatregoers’ Choice Awards’ will be announced at a ceremony at London’s Palace Theatre on Sunday 17th February 2013. The event will be streamed online from 7pm.

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‘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.