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The LabBook, lyrics and Music by Sharon EitanContact Email: sharoneitanphysics@gmail.com |
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A tale of intrigue and romance set in a physics research lab and possibly leading to the eventual invention of time-travel. Having found that he’s terminally ill, physicist John Horner covers up a serious problem in an experiment supposedly confirming his theory of time, in the hope that his protégé, Emilia Jones, may thus resume the work after his death. He hides his condition from his spouse, Steve, and their daughter Jemma, and grows increasingly isolated, but, in an act of kindness, helps unite Emilia with Ajoy Roy, a young physicist secretly in love with her. Ajoy unintentionally exposes the experiment’s weakness to a reporter, and scandal follows, shattering both Horner’s reputation and Ajoy and Emilia’s relationship. Horner despairs, but regains confidence after a real or imagined encounter with Emilia and Ajoy’s future children, who have apparently time-traveled to the present from the future lab where their parents will one day follow up on Horner’s work and build a time machine. Horner manages one final breakthrough, opens up to Steve, and bequeathes his intellectual property to Emilia, urging her to renew her collaboration with Ajoy. He then passes, assured of Steve’s love and confident in the fruition of his life’s work. Emilia and Ajoy reunite, and the show ends in a celebration of Horner’s life.
I started developing “The Lab” in early 2021 and finished writing the book and lyrics by the end of that year. Though the story and characters are fictional, the inspiration came from my personal experiences in physics (see Bio). I composed the music intermittently in 2022-2023, and in the second half of 2023 recorded demos for all of the musical numbers. I think the next thing to look for would be a staged reading or a workshop production. Sharon Eitan was born in Israel and spent his early childhood in France and Belgium before returning to Israel. He studied at the Rubin Academy of music in Tel-Aviv and received an MA degree in composition from Bar-Ilan University. During the 1990’s he was active as a professional composer of art music, with many chamber, orchestral and vocal works performed by professional ensembles, such as the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, the Cuban Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic string quartet, the Viennese opera company Musiktheater Opus Modern, the Bochman Quartet (Oxford), the Musica Nova ensemble (Tel-Aviv) and many others. Around the year 2000 he started working as a computer programmer and studying physics and math, and also did some research; though he did not remain long in scientific research, his article “Toward a geometrical foundation for physics”, where he proposed a radically new framework for the mathematical foundation of physics, was published in the peer reviewed journal “Quantum Studies: Mathematics and Foundations”. He occasionally recorded some pop/rock songs, and around 2015 he started writing musicals in Hebrew and English – book, lyrics and music. He lives in Israel with his teenage son. |
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The Lab
Book, lyrics and Music by Sharon Eitan
Contact Email: sharoneitanphysics@gmail.com
A tale of intrigue and romance set in a physics research lab and possibly leading to the eventual invention of time-travel. Having found that he’s terminally ill, physicist John Horner covers up a serious problem in an experiment supposedly confirming his theory of time, in the hope that his protégé, Emilia Jones, may thus resume the work after his death. He hides his condition from his spouse, Steve, and their daughter Jemma, and grows increasingly isolated, but, in an act of kindness, helps unite Emilia with Ajoy Roy, a young physicist secretly in love with her. Ajoy unintentionally exposes the experiment’s weakness to a reporter, and scandal follows, shattering both Horner’s reputation and Ajoy and Emilia’s relationship. Horner despairs, but regains confidence after a real or imagined encounter with Emilia and Ajoy’s future children, who have apparently time-traveled to the present from the future lab where their parents will one day follow up on Horner’s work and build a time machine. Horner manages one final breakthrough, opens up to Steve, and bequeathes his intellectual property to Emilia, urging her to renew her collaboration with Ajoy. He then passes, assured of Steve’s love and confident in the fruition of his life’s work. Emilia and Ajoy reunite, and the show ends in a celebration of Horner’s life.
I started developing “The Lab” in early 2021 and finished writing the book and lyrics by the end of that year. Though the story and characters are fictional, the inspiration came from my personal experiences in physics (see Bio). I composed the music intermittently in 2022-2023, and in the second half of 2023 recorded demos for all of the musical numbers. I think the next thing to look for would be a staged reading or a workshop production.
Sharon Eitan was born in Israel and spent his early childhood in France and Belgium before returning to Israel. He studied at the Rubin Academy of music in Tel-Aviv and received an MA degree in composition from Bar-Ilan University. During the 1990’s he was active as a professional composer of art music, with many chamber, orchestral and vocal works performed by professional ensembles, such as the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, the Cuban Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic string quartet, the Viennese opera company Musiktheater Opus Modern, the Bochman Quartet (Oxford), the Musica Nova ensemble (Tel-Aviv) and many others. Around the year 2000 he started working as a computer programmer and studying physics and math, and also did some research; though he did not remain long in scientific research, his article “Toward a geometrical foundation for physics”, where he proposed a radically new framework for the mathematical foundation of physics, was published in the peer reviewed journal “Quantum Studies: Mathematics and Foundations”. He occasionally recorded some pop/rock songs, and around 2015 he started writing musicals in Hebrew and English – book, lyrics and music. He lives in Israel with his teenage son.