Staged Reading of "Last Flight of the Mercenary"

A romantic comedy of love and quantum mechanices, written by Karen Howes and directed by Kathryn Bikle, presented by Theater Arts at Caltech.

At a bed and breakfast perched above the Saanich Inlet in British Columbia, a young woman's plan to marry the perfect man is thrown off course when a physics professor constructs a time machine so that she may alter the circumstances of her future and discover what went wrong in her life. This is a play of science and love, Shakespeare, nights without stars, and the latest in quantum information theory.

Audience members are invited to remain for a free post-show discussion when the playwright Karen Howes and the director Kathryn Bikle are joined onstage by the play's science mentor Aidan Chatwin-Davies and the dramaturg, Rob Rinow.

Written works by author Karen Howes include credits in television, documentary, and stage. She is currently a member of Skylight Theater's PlayLab development group in Beverly Hills. As a journalist, Karen has written hundreds of magazine features on science and technology, which have been published throughout the world and translated into numerous languages.

Director Kathryn Bikle is well-known at Caltech for directing plays such as Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw and The Tempest by William Shakespeare.

Science mentor Aidan Chatwin-Davies is a Ph.D. student at Caltech in the Particle Theory Group. He works on problems where gravity, quantum information, and cosmology intersect. Aidan is particularly interested in the quantum nature of spacetime and what we can learn about fundamental physics from cosmology.

The performance of Last Flight of the Mercenary is part of of "MACH 33: The Festival of New Science-Driven Plays at Caltech," presented by Theater Arts at Caltech under the direction of Brian Brophy.

(Note: The performance will be presented in the Caltech Theater Lab, behind TACIT House at 275 S. Hill Ave.)