Presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Princeton Atelier
Mr g: A Play about the Creation
Based on the novel by Alan Lightman ’70
Adapted by Cara Reichel ’96
Original music composed by Samantha Spector ’24 & Adrian Thananopavarn ’24
Presented in collaboration with members of the spring 2024 Atelier course, “Space, Time and Creation — A Theatrical Adaptation of Mr g” (ATL 495). Cosponsored by Princeton Project in Philosophy and Religion (3PR).
Run Time
Approximately 90 minutes, no intermission
Program Note
Adapted from physicist Alan Lightman’s playful and profound novel, Mr g is the story of creation told from a new perspective. Combining science, theology, and moral philosophy, Mr g is an imaginative work that explores the nature of existence.
Content Advisory
This performance will include the use of sudden, loud noises and flashing lights.
Special Notes
Please refrain from any photography and/or audio or video recording. Please silence all electronic devices including cellular phones and watches, and refrain from text messaging for the duration of the performance.
Accessibility
The Princeton University Chapel is accessible via a ramp entrance located on the north side of the building, accessible entrance door, and a lift to restrooms. For questions about facilities access at the Chapel contact Chapel Administrator Patricia Florek by emailing florek@princeton.edu or by calling 609-258-3048.
Cast
In order of appearance
Mr g: Heath Saunders
Aunt Penelope: Kate Semmens ’22
Uncle Deva: Nick Corley
Belhor: Han Van Sciver
Chorus
The students of ATL 495: Katharine McLaughlin ’24, Brandon McNeely ’24, Lev Ricanati ’25*, Samantha Spector ’24, Adrian Thananopavarn ’24
Musicians
Viola: Adrian Thananopavarn ’24
Production Team
*denotes a certificate student/minor in the Program in Theater & Music Theater
Special Thanks
Special thanks to Dean of the Chapel Alison Boden and Nicole Aldrich, Director of Chapel Music; Patricia Florek, Chapel Administrator; The Sextons; Professor Andrew Chignell, Department of Religion (3PR); Paul Muldoon, Mindy Solis, Darryl Waskow, Marion Friedman Young and the whole LCA team; Prospect Theater Company’s Melissa Huber ’96 & Peter Mills ’95; and all those who recorded voices in many languages for our sound cues.
Director’s Note
Throughout this semester, the students in ATL 495 have engaged in a dialogue with the text and concepts of Alan Lightman’s novel Mr g as well as the fundamental concepts behind the book. It has been a joy and privilege to explore this brand new theatrical adaptation of the text on its feet, imagining collaboratively how it could be brought to life with performers, music and through a creative design process.
We are so grateful to the LCA, the Chapel, and to Alan for allowing us the space and time to build our own creation. Tonight, we hope you, our audience, will enjoy participating in this unique site-specific experiment that our class has crafted, and hope you enjoy the inspirations that have come from our journey with the novel and the play.
Many thanks to the whole team that has put this evening together and has contributed their talent and energy to shaping this universe!
— Cara Reichel ’96
About the Guest Artists
Jiyoun Chang
Chang (Lighting Design) is a lighting and set designer whose Broadway credits include Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, The Cottage, KPOP Broadway, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf (Tony Award Nomination) and Slave Play (Tony, Drama Desk, Henry Hewes Nominations). Chang’s recent credits include Stereophonic (Playwrights Horizons), Walk On Through (MCC), The Far Country (Lucille Lortel & Drama Desk Noms), Ride The Cyclone (Arena), The Factotum (Chicago Lyric Opera), Bina’s Six Apples (Suzi Bass Award), Marys Seacole (Henry Hewes Nomination), The World is Round (Obie Award) and other works at The Public, Roundabout, New York Theatre Workshop, MCC, Signature, 2nd Stage, MTC, La Jolla, ATC, Guggenheim, Berkeley Rep, CalShakes, Guthrie, Old Globe, and elsewhere.
Nick Corley
Corley (Uncle Deva) is an actor whose Broadway credits include You Can’t Take It With You, On the 20th Century, …Drood, Mary Poppins, A Christmas Carol, and She Loves Me. His regional work includes All’s Well That Ends Well at Yale Rep, Ever After and Of Thee I Sing at Paper Mill, and more with Goodspeed, Kennedy Center, Ford’s Theater, St. Louis Rep, and Fulton Opera House. For television/film, Corley is featured in Kissing Jessica Stein, The Mysteries of Laura, High Maintenance, Law and Order (3 episodes), All My Children, and Submissions Only opposite Audra McDonald. As a director/writer his work has been seen all over the world including his award-winning production of Woody Sez — The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie.
Alan Lightman ’70
Lightman (Author) is an American writer, physicist, and social entrepreneur. He received his PhD in theoretical physics in 1974. Since then, Lightman has done fundamental research on the astrophysics of black holes, astrophysical radiation processes, and stellar dynamics. Lightman has served on the faculties of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was the first person at MIT to receive dual faculty appointments in science and in the humanities. He is currently professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT. He is the author of numerous books, both nonfiction and fiction, including Einstein’s Dreams, an international bestseller; The Diagnosis, a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction; and Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine, the basis of a three-part series titled “Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science,” which premiered on public television in January 2023. Lightman has won numerous awards for his work and holds six honorary degrees.
Chad Raines
Raines (Sound Design) is a composer, performer and sound designer from Dallas, Texas, whose music is often featured in theater podcasts and film. Recent credits include The Human Dream Project (St. Ann’s Warehouse Puppet Lab Festival), The Misanthrope (Moliere in the Park), Thunderbodies (Soho Rep), The Making of King Kong (Target Margin), White Devil (Red Bull Theater), I AM A BOYS CHOIR (The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival), along with many more productions at Roundabout Underground, Here Arts Center, Jack Performing Arts Center, The Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Ontological, La Mama, New Ohio, OSF, Bard Summerscape and is Resident Sound Designer for Fault Line Theater. His music and design for Nerve Tank Media’s audio drama Saturn’s Return won Best New Story-Based Production in the 2022 Audio Verse Awards. He is also Sound Designer for Robin Frohardt’s The Plastic Bag Store, a Pomegranate Arts Immersive experience.
Cara Reichel ’96
Reichel (Adaptor & Director) is the founding Producing Artistic Director of New York City’s critically-acclaimed, Obie and Drama Desk Award-winning Prospect Theater Company. Reichel directed the NYC premiere of Einstein’s Dreams, based on the book by Alan Lightman, a production which received multiple 2020 Drama Desk Award nominations. For more than two decades, she has been a leader in the field of new musical theater development. She collaborates frequently with fellow founding Prospect artist, composer/lyricist Peter Mills ’95. They have created over a dozen new musicals including: The Hello Girls (2019 Outer Critics Circle Award nominations for Outstanding Direction, Book, Score, and Production; three Drama Desk Award nominations including Outstanding Production), Death for Five Voices, The Underclassman, Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge, The Flood and Illyria.
Heath Saunders
Saunders (Mr g) is an actor, composer, multi-instrumentalist, director, teacher, producer, and diversity dramaturg—a role they infamously made up one day and now is a whole career unto itself. All of their free time is generally devoted to readings, workshops, and new works in one of those aforementioned capacities. They recently joined the faculty at The New School, in addition to enjoying teaching with the Musical Creators Institute and Actor Therapy. Selected theater credits include Company (Broadway), Once (Hangar Theater), Jesus Christ Superstar (NBC Live!, Chicago Lyric), Alice By Heart (MCC Theater), and The Great Comet (Broadway). Their 2020 EP Does Not Play Well With Others (I Hope You’re Not ‘Others’) can be heard wherever you stream music, except maybe Tidal–they don’t know, they don’t have an account. In 2021, they co-founded a tech start-up, Spectra Media Collective, with their mother and siblings, where they now act as Chief Creative Officer. Alternatively, you can keep track of their personal antics more or less everywhere @feeltheheath.
Han Van Sciver
Van Sciver (Belhor) (they/them) is a multidisciplinary performer and writer. Acting credits include the world premiere of At The Wedding (Lincoln Center), Sarah Ruhl’s Orlando (Williamstown Theatre Festival), and Else Went’s An Oxford Man (Manhattan Theater Club). Original works include Dragon (New York Theatre Workshop), Happy Birthday Han (JACK Radical Acts Festival), and episodic Sad Han (@sad__han, American Theatre). Their film credits include Goodbye, Sammy and When They See You, as well as The Ones Who Live for television. They are a percussionist with Lake Lucille Chekhov Project, Ars Nova, Baltimore Center Stage, and others. Van Sciver holds an MFA from Brown/Trinity Rep. @rhymes.with.man
Kate Semmens ’22
Semmens (Aunt Penelope) is a director, actor, producer, and lifelong New Yorker. Kate is the Producing Artistic Assistant at Prospect Theater Company and has also worked at Mercury Store, Titan Theatre Co., and Hangar Theatre. Kate is a proud graduate of LaGuardia High School and Princeton University. Recent credits include The Hello Girls (Director/Choreographer) at Princeton University, Queen Elizabeth in Mary Stuart at Princeton University, and Sweeney Todd (Asst. Director and U/S Tobias) at Hangar Theatre. Semmens will also be producing and premiering in 13th Morning by BT Hayes this summer at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. @katehsemmens
Land Acknowledgement
An estimated 10 million Native Americans lived in North America before the arrival of European colonizers. Many thousands lived in Lenapehoking, the vast homeland of the Lenni-Lenape, who were the first inhabitants of what is now called eastern Pennsylvania and parts of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware.
Princeton stands on part of the ancient homeland and traditional territory of the Lenape people. In 1756, the College of New Jersey erected Nassau Hall with no recorded consultation with the Lenni-Lenape peoples.
Treaties and forced relocation dispersed Lenape-Delaware to Ohio, Kansas, and Oklahoma. We acknowledge the violence of settler colonialism and pay respect to Lenape peoples past, present, and future and their continuing presence in the homeland and throughout the Lenape diaspora.
For more information, see the websites of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Princeton (NAISIP), Natives at Princeton and Princeton Indigenous Advocacy Coalition.
Lewis Center for the Arts
Chair: Judith Hamera
Executive Director: Marion Friedman Young
Director of Program in Theater: Jane Cox
Producing Artistic Director, Theater And Music Theater Season: Elena Araoz
View a list of Program in Theater & Music Theater faculty & guest artists
For a look at all the people working behind the scenes to bring you this event, view a list of LCA staff members.
The programs of the Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts are made possible through the generous support of many alumni and other donors. View a list of LCA Supporters
