The author is a Professor Emeritus of the Pennsylvania State University and a member of the Royal Astronomical Society, the American Astronomical Society and the International Astronomical Union. His interest in stage plays arises from his parents’ interest in theater. His father was a devotee of Shakespeare who, after military service in World War II, used to take this sometimes-reluctant youngster to Shakespeare readings. His mother regularly dragooned him into the role of respondent to the lines she had to memorize for repertory performances. At the time, the conventional wisdom was that, “Shakespeare was long before science.” This work argues otherwise.