A career as a lawyer, adjunct professor and administrative law judge would be plenty enough for most people.
Nick Schweitzer, though, has managed to add playwright and amateur scientist to his list of titles, while also being an advocate for freethinking — which is not necessarily the same as atheism, he says, as it tries to be more inclusive of a variety of God-dubious, science-based ways of looking at the world.
The 75-year-old West Sider was born in Madison, raised in Wisconsin and Illinois, went to college out east, worked in Washington, D.C., and returned for good to the place of his birth in 1982. He has two adult daughters, two granddaughters, and he and his wife have been reading to each other before bed for just about the entirety of their 52-year marriage.
You’ve created Madison-based public science displays on the electromagnetic field, the atom, the Earth’s layers, geology, anthropology and a permanent one on the solar system. How did they come about?
People are also reading…
I’ve been doing this or something like this for a couple of decades. It started with the solar system. When we were in Washington, I thought a beautiful display for the Smithsonian would be to have, on the Washington mall, the solar system laid out. We live across the street from Rennebohm Park, and there’s a nice straight sidewalk here which runs about a quarter of a mile. It wasn’t too long after we moved here that I approached the Parks Commission asking to put up the solar system.
So I got permission from the Parks Commission to put in the solar system here, and the impressive thing about that and the geological timeline is that the scale is so totally different. So the sun is at one end, Mercury, Venus, Earth and then there are Mars and Jupiter and Saturn and Uranus and Neptune, and Pluto is like at the end of the quarter-mile. But everything else is within the first 3 feet. It’s totally proportional.
These are temporary signs. But then I did it the next year and got the UW Space Place — a fellow named Jim Lattis is the head of that — he had had a similar idea. We worked together and the next summer we got permission from the Madison bike path people to put it in on the bike path. So the sun is at Monona Terrace, Mercury is before you turn the corner, by the boathouse is Venus, Earth, Mars, etc., Jupiter is out on Monroe Street, and Neptune is out at Epic Systems. And Pluto is in Mount Horeb, 26 miles away. It gives you a slightly different sense of scale. It is using distance as an analog.
And writing plays? You’ve had 20 produced, including ones on Bob La Follette and Madison’s sesquicentennial, and one coming up in December called “The Panto-lorian” at Madison’s Bartell Theatre.
I need some creative outlet. I’ve loved theater from the beginning. I’ve tried to write short stories and poetry and I don’t feel I’m very good at that. Somehow drama just works for me. I’m able to see interactions, write dialogue, etc. So I’ve been doing that for as long as I’ve been in Madison. I have lots and lots of plays on the shelves that will never be produced. Like I call myself an amateur scientist, I’m just a dilettante playwright. I have three plays that I have written that are “Shakespearean” in length and tone, and those are among the least producible, I’m sure, but they were exercises for me.
You’ve thought a lot about God or the lack thereof, including setting up a booth at the Dane County Fair to counter a booth on creationism. You’re an atheist?
Atheist is a hard word. I’m more comfortable with the word freethinker because it’s not quite as in your face. We are still closely attached to the First Unitarian Society. There is another congregation in Sauk County. It’s called the Free Congregation of Sauk County. I have been president of that for the last couple of years. They are an old free-thought society from Germany. There were at least a hundred different Freie Gemeinde, free-thought societies, around the country. We’re the last. They basically said there’s no dogma. There’s no religious authority. We want to base our lives on science, art, wisdom from all areas, including the great religions. So I am tremendously connected to this free-thought society. I have been trying to connect with other free-thought societies in the U.S. and around the world, especially Germany. I want to become a spokesperson for free thought, religious freedom in the U.S. and maybe do a little proselytizing.
You’ve run unsuccessfully for office a few times. What was that like?
I discovered I am not a politician. I don’t like debates. I don’t think fast on my feet.
Is not being a politician a good or bad thing?
I would have enjoyed the responsibility that goes along with making decisions, trying to influence laws. I would have enjoyed, I hope, exercising my skills, such as they are, in trying to make things better. I think I would have really detested some of the things that one does as a politician.
How have you had time for all your disparate interests?
I’m not that much of a workaholic. I’m patient. Getting this (geology) timeline has taken me three years, even retired. I just keep plugging away at things. Many of the plays have sat on the shelf in various stages, and I get to them on a vacation or some other time.
How did you and your wife, March, develop the habit of reading to each other before bed?
We do it as something to stay together and share things. The one we just finished is a biography of Alexander von Humboldt called “The Invention of Nature,” which is a fantastic historical story. We tend to read biographies.
Who picks the books?
We take turns.
And how long have you been doing this?
I guess you could say our whole married life. I think the first book we took turns reading was “Pride and Prejudice.” That was her choice, and I realized what a wonderful book it was.