Last Summer - A New One-Act Play by Jim Ottaviani
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The University of Michigan Summer Symposium in Theoretical Physics brought great minds from all over the world to Ann Arbor for 15 years between WWI and WWII. One evening in 1939, Enrico Fermi tried to convince his friend Werner Heisenberg not to return to Germany, where he would certainly be compelled to help the Nazis develop nuclear weapons. Last Summer is a new one-act play about this pivotal conversation, based on the physicists' own writings, written for the stage by award-winning science comics writer Jim Ottaviani, and produced in partnership with the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre. "Thank you to the Ann Arbor District Library’s Eli Neiburger and Andrew MacLaren for inviting me to participate in AADL’s Ann Arbor 200 celebration. I’m grateful to Loey Jones-Perpich and Al Sjoerdsma for their helpful, smart notes on early versions of the script. The Bentley Historical Library provided access to examples of the University’s original Summer Session booklets, which promised visiting scientists that they would be 'materially assisted by its technical staff, consisting of five full-time shop men, a full-time glass blower, apparatus men, a clerk, and a librarian.'" —Jim Ottaviani, November 2024 |
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