About the Play:

Winner of the 1992 Governor Generals Award for Drama (Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize), the Chalmers Award and the Dora Mavor Moore Award.

A Short History of Night is a full-length comedic drama by John Mighton. Based loosely on the life of 16th-century German astronomer, astrologer, and mathematician Johannes Kepler, who realized that the Earth travelled around the sun but was forced to work within a disbelieving scientific establishment that was steeped in myth, the play draws disturbing parallels between medieval and modern thought.

A Short History of Night chronicles the imagined exploits of the Renaissance's most unusual figures – meticulous, idealistic German geometrician and Christian mystic Johannes Kepler and his relationship with mentor mercurial, ambitious Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. They meet at Brahe's castle, where he lives with a gaggle of the scientific community's leading minds, all trying to solve the mysteries of the cosmos. As religious wars and witch hunts rage outside the castle walls, an unlikely band of alchemists and astrologers vie to unlock the secrets of the cosmos.

Cast: 1 female, 6 male

A Short History of Night premiered in 1990 at Station Street Arts Centre by the Dark Horse Theatre in Vancouver.

What people say:

"A Short History of Night confirms Mighton's status as an intellectually absorbing writer…." — Toronto Star

About the Playwright:

John Mighton, OC is an acclaimed Canadian playwright. His plays have been performed across Canada, as well as in Europe, Japan, and the United States, and have won a number of national awards including the Governor General's Literary Award for Drama, the Dora Award, the Chalmers Award and the Siminovitch Prize. He is also a professor of mathematics, and is the founder of JUMP (Junior Undiscovered Math Prodigies), an educational charity providing free tutoring to elementary-level students. He consulted on the mathematical models for the film Good Will Hunting, in which he acted a small role as a graduate student in mathematics. In 2010, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.