Einstein's Dreams Is Time, Movement and Illusions
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Study Guide 1 Authors Research Rachel Pelgen—Dramaturge Format Design Greg Picklesimer – Graphic Designer Curriculum Research Zachary Fryman – Lesson Plans The Little Company Staff Octavia Biggs —The Little Company Director Corinne Campagna —The Little Company Tour Coordinator The Little Company Morehead State University 106 Baird Music Hall Morehead, KY 40351 606-783-2545 www.moreheadstate.edu/thelittlecompany www.facebook.com/The-Little-Company 2 Table Of Contents Title of Page Page Number Synopsis/About the Authors Page 4 Alan Lightman Page 5 Director Notes Page 6 Designer Notes Page 7 Biography: Albert Einstein Page 13 Theory of Relativity Page 14 Brownian Motion Page 15 Time Worlds of “Einstein’s Dreams” Page 16 Lesson Plans/Core Standards Page 20 Jeopardy Game Page 36 Vocabulary Page 39 KCAS Standards Page 43 Resources Page 50 3 Synopsis of Einstein’s Dreams Einstein’s Dreams is a performance-art piece filled with intellectual, stimulating, and surprising movement inspired by Alan Lightman’s bestselling novel. In the beginning of the play, we discover young Einstein in 1905. He is working in a Swiss patent office by day and dreaming of time and his theory of relativity at night. In each dream he encounters a different world, with time behaving differently in each. Einstein’s Dreams is sure to tickle your senses and delight your inner child. About the Authors Ralf Remshardt & David Gardiner David Gardiner, Ralf Remshardt, and a cast of nine students at the University of Florida during a four-week period of workshop rehearsals in May/June 1996. It opened at the Center for the Performing Arts Black Box at the University of Florida in Gainesville on June 3, 1996 and ran for three performances. The cast then traveled to Utrecht and Amsterdam, Holland, where the piece was performed three more times. It was remounted in Gainesville on September 5,6, and 7, 1996 and was subsequently nominated to participate in the American College Theatre Festival regional competition in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in February of 1997. After winning he regional competition, it was selected as an alternate entry for the KCACTF Finals at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In 2001, a production based on this version and directed by Paul Stancato at the New York Fringe Festival. In 2009, it was staged by the original directors under the aegis of the PKU Institute for World Theater and Film at Peking University, China. In 2010, Kari Goetz directed a production at the Jobsite Theater, Tampa, FL. 4 Alan Lightman Alan Lightman was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1948 and was educated at Princeton and at the California Institute of Technology. He has written for Granta, Harpers, The New Yor ke r, and New York Review of Books. His previous books include Time Travel and Papa Joe’s Pipe, A Modern Day Yankee in a Connecticut Court, Origins, Ancient Light, Great Ideas in Physics, and Time for the Stars. Einstein’s Dreams is his first work of fiction. He teaches physics and writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 5 Directors Notes “Life is a vessel of sadness, but it is noble to live life, and without time there is no life. Others disagree: They would rather have an eternity of contentment, even if that eternity were fixed and frozen, like a butterfly mounted in a case.” –Alan Lightman Alan Lightman’s novel, Einstein’s Dreams, is a work of fiction, but it is a fact that in 1905 Einstein developed four papers. This “miracle year” would forever transform scientific research. However, Lightman writes not of Einstein, his personal life or the process of developing these papers. Instead, Lightman proposes the extraordinary idea that in 1905, while working in a patent office in Bern, Switzerland, and about to submit his “Special Theory of Relativity” at the age of 26, Einstein experienced a series of dreams. The nature of these dreams makes one wonder about the Einstein who was able to look into the future and discover something so inconceivable. “When the Special Theory of Relativity began to germinate in me,” wrote Einstein about these times, “I was visited by all sorts of nervous conflicts…I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion”. Einstein’s fearless adventure in creativity encouraged me to explore the mysterious connection to art and science. The New York Times perhaps said it best: “If Einstein’s Dreams were a painting it would have been painted by Magritte.” My personal love of Magritte further ignited my excitement about this show. This quote would become the driving force that inspired the design team. The show is filled with images and opportunities for me to portray Einstein’s theories through multiple human conditions, a philosophical subtext of movement, and a challenge to present a performance art piece that is filled with surprises. Despite their sentimentality, each of the scenes within the play are indeed, based on real physics. Do you remember your first kiss? Have you ever found yourself at a crossroads, needing to make a decision, and played potential scenarios out in your imagination? How often do you feel like life is racing past you? Have you ever wanted to freeze a lover or a child in a century long embrace? Or revisited past events in your life, whether good or bad? When I directed, Always, Patsy Cline, I could place myself, or rather my heart, in each of those songs within the show. I have found myself doing the same with Einstein’s Dreams. All of the 18 scenes are individual. They challenged me to share with the cast and the team, a piece of myself, while demanding truthfulness in creativity. This is what I want to share with you, together with one last thought from Einstein: “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. Do not stop questioning because your imagination will take you anywhere.” ~Octavia 6 Designer Notes Scenic Designer: Kate Winegarden Kate Winegarden is a Junior Theatre Major with a Creative Writing Minor from Louisville, KY. At Morehead State University she has Assistant Stage Managed for Carrie The Musical, Scenic Designed for Crimes of the Heart, and will be Stage Managing for Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in November. She has also been involved in several shows at The Bard's Town Theatre in Louisville, including the Derby City Playwright's festival where she Stage Managed Exposure. This is her first Little Co. show and she is excited for this new style and adventure. Einstein’s mind never stops. He is always developing new ideas and theories. One of the main themes in Einstein's Dreams is time, movement and illusions. I want to combine 1905 with contemporary ideas, almost a Steampunk look. Everything should be 1905 accurate, with some futuristic qualities. Dreams don’t make sense to anyone except for the dreamer. Sound & Projection Designer: Paul Yeates Our production of Einstein’s Dreams is a spectacle of beautiful images of our interpretations of these worlds that Albert Einstein has envisioned. The scenic, costume and lighting designs take us to so many places, times, characters and worlds. The projection designs for this production are meant only to be an addition to an already beautiful picture. I have purposefully decided to use minimal projections, because I feel that as audience members we need to use our imaginations at times; and this is the perfect production for us to stretch our imaginations. The images of the galaxies, earth and even the desk of the man behind the theories are there to support the non-realistic approach we have strived to achieve. Though the one moment I think projections really will make a difference will be the slowly rotating earth that we probably won’t even notice has rotated until nearly the end of the scene. As the images appear and disappear my goal is to blend in as easily as possible to the surrounding elements that exist. 7 Stage Manager: Hannah Maggard Hannah Maggard is a Secondary English Ed. Major with a Minor in Theatre. She has spent her years at Morehead performing in multiple shows, on different crews, and positions within the theatre department. She spent the past summer at The Prizery in South Boston WV as Assistant Stage Manager and Sound Engineer. She is so excited to be the Stage Manager for the Little Company this year and would like to thank her family and friends for their full support. Properties Designer: Gregory Picklesimer The story of “Einstein's Dreams” is about a young Albert Einstein a patent clerk in 1905 who happens to be on the verge of making a discovery with his Theory of Relativity. Einstein dreamed of multiple worlds where time acts in ways unlike our own. Time can go in a continuous circle, time goes in reverse, time goes at a slow pace or time does not move at all. The concept for “Einstein’s Dreams” is an abstract dream state of Albert’s mind by having simple items such as umbrellas that will have different purposes in the dream world becoming the gears of a clock, or one of Einstein’s time vortexes, representing different worlds of time dreamed by Albert himself as we the audience follow along learning how these worlds function. At the same time balancing the realism and historical accuracy of 1905. In closing “Einstein’s Dreams” was quite a challenging learning experience and I will take what I learned and incorporate that into my design processes for future shows. 8 Costume Designer: Kasee Arnett Though I had previously served as an Assistant Costume Designer, “Einstein’s Dreams” was my first opportunity to serve as the head Costume Designer.