A Noise Within (ANW) presents a free, staged reading of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, directed by Stephen Rockwell, on Wednesday, January 6, performed as part of Words Within, A Noise Within’s ongoing series of free play readings by resident artists. Reading directly follows a lecture on stage at 7:00 p.m. from California Institute of Technology’s Dr. Julia Greer about the play, and she will then join the artists for a talk back with the audience after the play reading.
Readings routinely fill up early – so reservations are suggested. Please RSVP via phone to (626) 356-3100 ext. 1 to reserve your seat for this performance.
Arcadia is a 1993 play by Tom Stoppard concerning the relationship between past and present, order and disorder, certainty and uncertainty. Many critics have praised it as the finest play from one of the most significant contemporary playwrights in the English language. In 2006, the Royal Institution of Great Britain named it one of the best
science-related works ever written.
“People have been extensively exploring the concepts of entropy and the second law of thermodynamics since they were first introduced. Within all the laws of physics – the law that entropy always increases, which is the main tenet in the 2nd law of thermodynamics – holds a prominent place – much because of its universality and implications to just about any physical process,” notes Dr. Greer.
She continues, “The intriguing mystery is how does the second law of ever-increasing entropy in physics apply to the human world, where emotions and intellect not only perceive things but also interact with the physical world. One could infer that the main scientific aspect of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia is chaos and a lack of order, or ENTROPY! The overall structure of the play, the development of each character, and Thomasina’s discovery of both science and her own self, as she grows up. It’s the intersection of art and science in its purest form, and as long as we keep on asking questions, we will never run out of entropy!”
Cast includes Stage Directions – Deborah Strang*; 1809 – Thomasina Coverly – Erika Soto, Septimus Hodge– Shaun Taylor-Corbett*, Jellaby, – Alan Blumenfeld*, Ezra Chater – Jeremy Rabb*, Richard Noakes – Eric Curtis Johnson*, Lady Croom – Abby Craden*, Capt. Brice, RN – Ken Merckx*; Present Day – Hannah Jarvis – Susan Angelo*, Chloe Coverly – Christine Breihan*, Bernard Nightingale – Freddy Douglas*, Valentine Coverly – Abubakr Ali, and Gus Coverly/Augustus Coverly – Vega Pierce-English. *denotes members of AEA
More about Arcadia
Arcadia is set in Sidley Park, an English country house in Derbyshire, and takes place in both 1809/1812 and the present day (1993 in the original production). The activities of two modern scholars and the house’s current residents are juxtaposed with those of the people who lived there in the earlier period.
In 1809, Thomasina Coverly, the daughter of the house, is a precocious teenager with ideas about mathematics, nature and physics, well ahead of her time. She studies with her tutor Septimus Hodge, a friend of Lord Byron (an unseen guest in the house).
In the present, writer Hannah Jarvis and literature professor Bernard Nightingale converge on the house: she is investigating a hermit who once lived on the grounds; he is researching a mysterious chapter in the life of Byron. As their studies unfold – with the help of Valentine Coverly, a post-graduate student in mathematical biology – the truth about what happened in Thomasina’s time is gradually revealed.
Sir Tom Stoppard OM CBE FRSL (born Tomáš Straussler; 3 July 1937) is a British playwright, who was knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. He co-wrote the screenplays for Brazil, The Russia House, and Shakespeare in Love, and has received one Academy Award and four Tony Awards. Themes of human rights, censorship and political freedom pervade his work along with exploration of linguistics and philosophy. Stoppard has been a key playwright of the National Theatre and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation.
Born in Czechoslovakia, Stoppard left as a child refugee, fleeing imminent Nazi occupation. He settled with his family in Britain after the war, in 1946, having spent the three years prior (1943–46) in a boarding school in Darjeeling in the Indian Himalayas. After being educated at schools in Nottingham and Yorkshire, Stoppard became a journalist, a drama critic and then, in 1960, a playwright.
Guest Lecturer Julia R. Greer’s research focuses on creating 3-dimensional nano-architectures and designing experiments to assess their properties. These architected meta-materials have multiple applications as biomedical devices, battery electrodes, and lightweight structural materials and provide a rich “playground” for fundamental science.
Greer has S.B. in Chemical Engineering (minor in Advanced Music Performance) from MIT in 1997, Ph.D. in Materials Science from Stanford, worked at Intel (2000-03) and was a post-doc at PARC (2005-07). Julia joined Caltech in 2007 and has appointments in Materials Science, Mechanical Engineering, and Medical Engineering.
Greer has published in over 100 publications. The Top 10 Breakthrough Technologies by MIT’s Technology Review (2015) recognized her work. She was a Gilbreth Lecturer at the National Academy of Engineering (2015), and is a Young Global Leader by World Economic Forum (2014).
She is a recipient of multiple awards: Kavli Early Career (2014), Nano Letters Young Investigator Lectureship (2013), Society of Engineering Science Young Investigator (2013), TMS Early Career Faculty (2013), NASA Early Career Faculty (2012), Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award (2012). Greer serves as an Associated Editor of Nano Letters and on the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science.
About A Noise Within
A Noise Within, founded in 1991 and named “one of the nation’s premier classical repertory companies” by The Huffington Post, is the leading presenter of these plays in Southern California. The company’s mission is to produce world-class performances of the great works of drama in rotating repertory with a resident company; to educate and inspire the public through programs that foster an understanding and appreciation of history’s great plays and playwrights; and to train the next generation of classical theatre artists.
Originally based in a former Masonic Temple in Glendale, the company moved to its present home—a building of architectural distinction designed by Edward Durrell Stone of Kennedy Center fame—in 2011. Helmed by Producing Artistic Directors Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, who hold MFAs from San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre, A Noise Within delivers a seven-show repertory season and a wide range of educational programs to diverse audiences from Los Angeles County and well beyond. Voted “Best Theatre” by readers of Time Out Los Angeles and Reader Recommended by Pasadena Weekly, A Noise Within is indeed “California’s Home for the Classics.”
