A Disappearing Number Garners Best New Play Award

April 2, 2008

A Disappearing Number, the British play which explores the complex collaboration between Srinivasa Ramanujan and G.H. Hardy, has won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play of the year. It ran at the Barbican, in London, in the fall of 2007. Director Simon McBurney and his theatrical company will revive the production in London late 2008 and then bring it to Paris and Barcelona.

The play was highlighted in the Math in the News item "Ramanujan and Hardy Featured on the London Stage" (9/21/07).

Blending multimedia and physical storytelling techniques, A Disappearing Number does something which many thought impossible: making the world of mathematics compelling. In addition to retelling the startling story of how Ramanujan, an unknown, self-taught man living in India, came up with a host of remarkable mathematical proofs, the play explores the cultural differences between east and west, and the philosophical power of numbers.

This award completes a hat trick of awards successes for A Disappearing Number. It also won Best New Play at the Critics’ Circle Awards and Best Play at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards.

Source: Official London Theatre Guide