“There’s a law named after me!”

Isaac New­ton is one of the tow­er­ing genius­es of west­ern sci­ence: apples falling from trees, the laws of motion, the cal­cu­lus. He was also a bit on the eccen­tric side: he stuck a nee­dle into his tear duct to try to deter­mine how the eye sees light, for exam­ple. Play­wright Lucas Hnath takes this fact and runs with it, cre­at­ing a play in which the ambi­tious young New­ton seeks a men­tor in Robert Hooke of the Roy­al Soci­ety. Hnath plays some­what fast and loose with his­to­ry (and lets us know he’s doing so from the out­set), but still rais­es impor­tant ques­tions about the search for knowl­edge. The sto­ry is his­tor­i­cal, the lan­guage is con­tem­po­rary, and the play should both delight audi­ences and give them a lot to think about.

Performing at:

Grem­lin Theatre
Annex Building
550 Van­dalia Street
St. Paul, MN 55114

Directions

Take I‑94 to Van­dalia north to the Annex build­ing with “Lake Mon­ster Brew­ery”. Enter via the dou­ble doors next to the brewery.

Running Time:

2 Hours (with 1 Intermission)

Performance Dates

Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 2 at 7:30pm – Open­ing Night
Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 3 at 7:30pm
Mon­day, Feb­ru­ary 4 at 7:30pm – Pay What You Can Performance
Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 8 at 7:30pm
Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 9 at 7:30pm
Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 10 at 7:30pm
Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 15 at 7:30pm
Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 16 at 7:30pm
Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 17 at 3:00pm

** Audio descrip­tion ser­vices avail­able for this performance

Press

“The smart, fun­ny, mod­ern play, well writ­ten and well real­ized by The­atre Pro Rata, is one of those plays that will get you think­ing about issues big and small.”

 

“a fas­ci­nat­ing imag­in­ing of the inner life of one of our most famous scientists.”

-Cher­ry and Spoon

 

“Four delight­ful­ly crisp per­for­mances… a fas­ci­nat­ing play writ­ten with con­tem­po­rary lan­guage, rhythms and dress”

 

“Direc­tor Carin Bratlie Weth­ern has pierc­ing­ly matched the spar­ring intel­lec­tu­al rig­or of Hnath’s script with tur­bu­lent emotion—sometimes under­stat­ed, some­times overt.”

 

“a sparkling Michael Quadrozzi… Paul LaNave siz­zles as Isaac… Edwin Strout’s Hooke is sim­ply marvelous…Pro Rata’s pro­duc­tion is round­ed out by a splen­did turn from Stanzi Schalter.”

-Laven­der

This activ­i­ty is made pos­si­ble by the vot­ers of Min­neso­ta through a grant from the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Region­al Arts Coun­cil, thanks to a leg­isla­tive appro­pri­a­tion from the arts and cul­tur­al her­itage fund.