The alignment between the two playwrights is much more harmonious. Friends and colleagues for 25 years, the pair met at chemistry conferences over the years, and decided to write the play together because they knew of each other's love of nonscientific literature. They ensconced themselves in New York and San Francisco hotels to put together the piece, though they ended up writing and editing most of the play through voluminous e-mails. There are very few people who actually know who discovered oxygen, and we felt a responsibility to not only share the information we discovered in dramatic, entertaining fashion, but also to be historically accurate. Bryan Bevell, former artistic director of the Fritz Theatre in San Diego, will direct.
Scientists struggle to identify the truth.
This pursuit echoes the artist's struggle to identify beauty. Like scientists, we are always trying to capture the essence of different elements. People like Stephen Hawking and other very sophisticated scientists wrote about science for the general audience. The public had before seemed alternately interested and afraid of science, because it impinges on our lives in both positive and negative ways. But the interest is now very strong.