The Mistake, performed at the University of Chicago. Photo: Courtesy of Michael Mears.
Everything to play for: Michael Mears meets the man who sets the Doomsday Clock
‘Were we actually going to perform the play here?’
So far on this tour I’ve felt butterflies, goosebumps, and now shivers down the spine.
Let me explain. When trying to pin down a particular venue for my play The Mistake, I can spend huge amounts of time in emails and phone calls and Zoom meetings, only for all that effort to come to nothing. But then sometimes you can shoot off one speculative email – as I did just one month before leaving for the US, where I wanted to tour – and get an immediate positive response. Such was Chicago. I had tried for months to get a performance in the Windy City to no avail. Various promising options fell through. But that last speculative email of mine was to the chair of the Department of Physics at the University of Chicago, Peter Littlewood. He responded that, yes, they’d love to host us, in the department lecture theatre. I was beyond thrilled.
