KU News Release

KU’s Osher Institute invites public to a special performance of ‘QED’

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas’ Osher Lifelong Learning Institute will present a special performance of “QED,” a play about world-famous physicist and eccentric Richard Feynman.

The public is invited to attend the event, which takes place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 17, at Regnier Hall auditorium on the Edwards Campus in Overland Park.

“KU’s Osher Institute is committed to offering more courses and events in Johnson County,” said Roger Kugler, program manager for the institute. “So we decided to open this performance as a way for people to get to know more about us.”

Directed by Robert Paisley, “QED” is presented under the auspices of the Kansas City Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre. Veteran Kansas City actor Richard Alan Nichols will play the role of Feynman — a role made popular on Broadway by Alan Alda, the star of TV’s “M.A.S.H.”

Feynman was an American physicist known for expanding the theory of quantum electrodynamics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1965 and was honored by a postage stamp in 2005. But he was also known as an eccentric.

He may have helped develop the atomic bomb and served on the panel that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, but he was also a notorious practical joker, bongo player and decipherer of Maya hieroglyphs. Feynman liked to pursue multiple interests, such as biology, art, percussion and lock picking. Fellow physicist Freeman Dyson once wrote that Feynman was “half-genius, half-buffoon” but later revised this to “all-genius, all-buffoon.”

The Osher Institute develops short courses and events in the Lawrence, Topeka and the Kansas City area with a focus on those 50 and older but welcomes learners of all ages.

For information about the performance, visit the Continuing Education Web site or call (785) 864-5823.

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