April Session Report: Staged Reading of the Play Flight

The Forum on the History of Physics sponsored a staged reading the play titled Flight by the playwright Arthur Giron at the April meeting of the Society. The play is about Orville & Wilbur Wright: two American brothers, inventors, and aviation pioneers. The Wright brothers are generally credited with inventing, building, and flying the world’s first successful airplane. The action of the play takes place in the Wright’s hometown Dayton, Ohio in the late 19th century and at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in the early 1900s. The play Flight was specifically chosen because the Society was meeting in Ohio (Columbus). The playwright makes use of some basic biographical facts and supposed what it was like for Orville and Wilbur growing up in the dysfunctional Wright family. The play explores the lives of the April Session Report: Staged Reading of the Play Flight By Brian Schwartz, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of CUNY Wright family in in warm and comic theatrical terms. The playwright does not claim it happened exactly as the play story. It is not a documentary. The play involves five real life characters, the Wright brothers, their parents and Otto Lilienthal, a German pioneer of aviation who became known as the flying man. Lilienthal was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful flights with unpowered airplanes. The Wright Brothers had extensive contact with Otto and they credit him as a major inspiration for their decision to pursue manned flight.

Actors associated with the Available Light Theatre Company in Columbus, Ohio performed the staged reading. http://avltheatre.com/ The Company is dedicated to building a more conscious and compassionate world by creating joyful and profound theatre Aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright made history December 17, 1903, with the first powered and sustained flight serving the community. The playwright, Arthur Giron, is the co-playwright of the recent 2015 Broadway Musical, Amazing Grace. He has written fifteen plays. Among them are the sciencebased plays, Emilie’s Voltaire, winner of the Galileo Prize and the play Moving Bodies about the life of Richard Feynman which was performed as a staged reading at the March 2017 meeting of the APS in New Orleans. Arthur’s play Flight toured 120 US cities. Arthur was Head of Graduate Playwriting at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a founding member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York. The play director, some of the actors, Brian Schwartz, CUNY and Smitha Vishveshwas, University of Illinois, conducted a talkback discussion with the audience after the play reading.

Aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright made history December 17, 1903, with the first powered and sustained flight

The articles in this issue represent the views of their authors and are not necessarily those of the Forum or APS.