Michael Frayn's Copenhagen

Grinnell College presents Michael Frayn's 1998 play Copenhagen, a drama that weaves together physics, friendship, and the atomic bomb; it won the Olivier and Tony Awards for best play.

About the Play

An emotionally explosive play of ideas, Copenhagen draws on history, science, moral philosophy, and metaphysics to explore the mysteries of human behavior, “the final core of uncertainty at the heart of things.” Directed by Ellen Mease, associate professor of theatre and dance, the play dramatizes what could or should have happened in the mysterious 1941 wartime meeting between the German physicist Werner Heisenberg and his former mentor, the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, in Nazi-occupied Denmark.

Hitler’s rapid conquest of Europe put Heisenberg and Bohr on opposite sides. At the time of their meeting, Heisenberg was in charge of theoretical work on the feasibility of atomic bombs. Why had Heisenberg come to Copenhagen? What did he want from Bohr?

The two men enjoyed perhaps the greatest friendship in the history of science. In close collaboration during the 1920s, they’d developed quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle, and complementarity — the Copenhagen interpretation . With the discovery of nuclear fission in the 1930s, talk of nuclear power and atomic weapons was already in the air as the world headed into war.

Tickets and Times

Tickets are required for this free public event, and will be available beginning Monday, Nov. 17, through the Bucksbaum Center for the Arts box office.

Performances are:

• 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 20-22
• 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 23

All performances are in Bucksbaum Center for the Arts, Flanagan Studio Theatre,

About Grinnell’s Production

This production features

• Ian Saderholm ’15 as Niels Bohr
• Scott Slava-Ross ’17 as Margretha Bohr
• Matt Steege ’17 as Werner Heisenberg
• Scenic and light design by Justin Thomas
• Costume design by Erin Howell-Gritsch
• Technical direction by Erik Sanning ’89
• Stage management by Emily Griffith ’17
• Assistant directing by Mary Adams ’15
• Directing and stage management assistance by Keith Hoagland ’18 and Michelle Risacher ’17.