When he stares into the night sky, with the stars off in the distance as far as the eye can see, Kevin Hainline gets why folks can feel so insignificant.
Infinity, the notion of never-endingness, can be overwhelming.
“Most people, they just don’t think about it because it’s too big,” he surmised. “People always tell me, ‘Man, when I look up at the stars, I feel so small. I feel so insignificant. The universe is so big.’ ... I would love to really tell you how important and special you are with respect to the universe.”
Sounds like a parent’s pep talk after their son or daughter didn’t make the basketball team.
Except Hainline isn’t offering platitudes or looking for some cosmic equivalence in the night sky.
When he takes the stage at this weekend’s 2025 Tucson Fringe Festival, the University of Arizona astronomy professor and team member of the NASA James Webb Space Telescope will attempt to break down the notion of infinity in terms you and I can understand.
And he’ll try to entertain us along the way.
Kevin Hainline is bringing his “You and Infinity” show to the 2025 Tucson Fringe Festival this weekend.
Hainline said he is one of only two Tucson performers on the lineup for this year’s festival, Thursday, Jan. 9 through Sunday, Jan. 12. The festival, now in its 13th year, gives performers of all genres, from music to experimental and avant garde performance art, a chance to show off their art.
His appearance from 3:30-4:30 p.m. Saturday at the University of Arizona’s Marroney Theatre will mix his vast knowledge of the cosmos with the performance experience he gained as a theater kid growing up in Southern California.
“I did a huge amount of theater,” he said, including dabbling in improv and comedy in college. “I’m very comfortable on stage in front of an audience.”
In his classrooms, he might rely on PowerPoint presentations, but for this show, he’s going old-school with transparencies and an outdated overhead projector. This isn’t a lecture, although when you leave the Marroney, home of the UA Arizona Repertory Theatre, Hainline is hoping you will have learned something.
“The point of the show is not to teach people about the math of infinity and have them fall asleep, you know, but rather, teach people about what what they are with respect to infinity and how important that is,” he said.
Hainline will mix some comedy into the mathematical equations and anecdotes. He’s been in a classroom long enough — three years as a research professor at Dartmouth in New Hampshire and nine at the UA — to know that you can be a fabulous lecturer and your students will still forget everything you said once they walk out the door.
But if you connect with them on something other than an academic level, “they will remember how they feel at the end,” he said.
“The point of my show, of this performance, is that I want people to not walk out thinking, ‘Oh, I’m so nothing,’ but rather how special are we as living creatures in an infinite universe, in an infinite time,” he explained. “How special is it to be alive. I want people to recognize that, because that’s a fundamental way of which we’re going to get through uncertain futures is by looking at ourselves as very special, and, you know, more than just fragile ... like the product of billions of years of things happening where we get a chance to be anything at all.”
Tucson Fringe Festival events will be held Thursday-Sunday at the Marroney Theatre, 1025 N. Olive Road on the UA campus. Tickets are $25 for a two-show pass, $55 for five shows through tucsonfringe.simpletix.com, where you can find a complete schedule of events and performers.
