you did­n’t before Copen­hagen hit the stage in 1998 and dra­mat­i­cal­ly told the sto­ry of Niels Bohr’s shad­owy meet­ing with Wern­er Heisen­berg back in 1941. Since then, sci­ence plays have been going strong. Just take this for exam­ple: L.A. The­atre Works recent­ly launched its Rel­a­tiv­i­ty Series, a “month­ly broad­cast fea­tur­ing plays that explore the impact of sci­ence on indi­vid­u­als and soci­ety.” You can down­load the series as a pod­cast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), and it so hap­pens that the series kicks off with a Tony and Pulitzer Prize-win­ning play called Proof, star­ring Anne Heche.

Writ­ten by David Auburn in 2001, Proof is not as aca­d­e­m­ic as it sounds. The New York Times called it “An exhil­a­rat­ing and assured new play … acces­si­ble and com­pelling as a detec­tive sto­ry.” And Hol­ly­wood turned the play into a film in 2005, with Gwyneth Pal­trow play­ing the lead. So you should­n’t have any reser­va­tions about immers­ing your­self in this dra­mat­ic work. Down­load it, sync it, and get ready to lis­ten to a tale of love and death, intel­lec­tu­al adven­ture and para­noia, and a sprin­kling of sex, drugs and rock and roll.

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