Greetings!

This is the first of an occasional series of newsletters to you, the supporting audience of Indra’s Net Theater. I want to thank you for supporting our ongoing mission of bringing rich, complex, science- based plays to Berkeley. I will do these occasionally, just to let you know what is happening and what to expect coming up.

First of all, I wanted to let you know that A Time for Hawking was named the 2018 Best Overall Production of a Play in the East Bay (theaters with fewer than 100 seats) by the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle! Our actors, Alan Coyne (Stephen) and Adrian Deane (Jane), were also nominated for awards in their respective categories. A great way to finish out Indra’s Net Theater’s 6th season. Thanks again to everyone who came and supported the play.

Looking forward, we are very excited to announce that we have obtained the rights to re-produce Michael Frayn’s wonderful, award-winning play Copenhaganen December. Many of you saw our original production at the Osher Studio in 2013. Since then we have often had requests to do the play again, as it is one of those that just gets richer upon each viewing. In 2018, Michael Frayn made some revisions, based on newly released archival material, for a production in London. We are thrilled to produce what I think is the first American production of this new version.

The play masterfully explores the relationship between two of the founders of quantum mechanics, Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. Bohr was the godfather of all modern physicists, having discovered the modern structure of the atom early in the 20th century. Virtually all of the great physicists of the 20th century seemed to study with Bohr, and a few special ones became his assistants. The closest of these was Heisenberg. Bohr and Heisenberg developed the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics— the accepted theory that became the basis for so much of modern technology: everything from all of modern chemistry, to the computer and cell phone, and much more.

In addition, they became personally very close. Heisenberg was like a son to Bohr in the 1920’s. That all changed in one night in late 1941. Bohr, in occupied Denmark, received a visit from Heisenberg, who had stayed at work in Germany even after the Nazi takeover. After that night, their relationship was never the same again. That much is well known. What happened that night? That is the central question explored by Heisenberg, Bohr and his wife, Margethe, during the play, even as they discover that the new physics they developed also shows that an atomic bomb can be built.

The expansive conversations and intense personal moments will ring differently in the intimate space of the Berkeley City Club. And we look forward to exploring the new Margrethe Bohr nuances that the new script might bring. At the core, the play is about the uncertainty we all live with, and how the most important questions might really concern how we are with each other.

Also this fall, we will be presenting a series of play readings. The first of these will be a reading of the play Farm Hall by David Cassidy. For those of you familiar with Copenhagen, there is a reference to the English Country Estate of Farm Hall, where the captured German nuclear scientists were interned at the end of the war. For six months they were kept incommunicado, allowed to roam freely within the house, surrounded by a servant staff. The German scientists joked that “if it were the Gestapo” they would have installed hidden microphones. In fact, British Intelligence was not so far behind, and it was all recorded, including their reaction to dropping the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. These transcripts were declassified in the 1990’s and form the basis for this play. We will be doing a staged reading of the play in the late summer or early fall. Time and location to be announced, so stay tuned.

We also are arranging for a second staged reading later in fall; the play and location are still being finalized. Stay tuned for that announcement as well.

Thanks again for your loyalty and support. We’ll keep trying to bring you what you’ve come to expect: the best in theater.