A Staged Reading of the Play: Delicate Particle Logic

The play explores the relationship between science and art through the story of the discovery of nuclear fission. Under the harshly male-dominated science elite of the time, Lise Meitner broke through to become the leader of a major scientific institute, and the first woman to have the title of ``Professor'' in all of Germany. Along with her long-time partner, chemist Otto Hahn, she began a series of experiments that led to the discovery of nuclear fission. The play presents a meeting between Dr. Meitner and Hahn's wife, Edith, who was a painter. The complicated swirl of their intertwined lives, two women and one man, mixes with the violent upheavals in the world, as the Nazi's take over Germany and everything changes. Edith Hahn and Lise Meitner discuss the bomb, the Nazis and Otto Hahn's Nobel Prize as an imagined friendship blossoms between the scientist and the artist. The playwright is Jennifer Blackmer who is a faculty member in theatre at Ball State University \underline {http://www.jenniferblackmer.com/} and the staged reading is performed by the Pioneer Theatre Company, \underline {http://www.pioneertheatre.org/} of Salt Lake City. After the performance, the director and the actors will be available for a talk-back audience discussion. Produced by Brian Schwartz, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.