Yes, Albert Einstein visited Los Alamos this past weekend in the person of Tom Schuch in AAUW’s production of Einstein: A Stage Portrait, Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon at the Little Theater.

The Little Theater was nearly full for both performances. The complexity of Einstein’s personality was on full display with stories from his childhood, adolescence and college days as well as his unwanted celebrity status.   

Mr. Schuch brought the great scientist’s sense of humor to the stage with joke after joke about himself. Einstein’s early pacificism, his great love of music, hatred of the Nazis and recognition of the recent detection of gravitational waves, predicted by his own general theory of relative a hundred years ago, all found a place in the script.

Tom Schuch was a totally believable Einstein, complete with accent, absentmindedness, violin, unkempt appearance and totally wild hair. Mr. Schuch was born and lived two years in Los Alamos before his parents moved to Albuquerque in 1960. He has portrayed the great scientist more than 150 times over the past 16 years including a string of performances in India this past December.

Emil Mottola, Los Alamos theoretical physicist, accompanied Mr. Schuch on the stage for a half hour of Q & A following the play. Dr. Mottola explained to the audience the significance of the recent discovery of gravitational waves and the new window of exploration that has been opened to the universe.

AAUW deeply appreciates the help and cooperation of Los Alamos Little Theater in creating this successful production.