a Memberfest Reading of

Grant & Twain

written by Elizabeth Diggs* directed by Bram Lewis

Tuesday, June 28 at 7pm

Reservations Required
Ensemble Studio Theatre, 2nd Floor
545 West 52nd Street, 2nd Floor

All audience members will be required to show proof of full vaccination (either 2 doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or 1 dose of the Johnson & Johnson) and to wear a mask while in the building.

THIS READING IS CURRENTLY AT CAPACITY AND CAN NO LONGER ACCEPT RESERVATIONS

You are welcome to try your luck getting in off the wait list when our lobby opens a half hour before this performance. Please note, our wait list is handled in person only, and will be first-come, first-serve.

About Memberfest

We are excited to have Memberfest resume this June. Memberfest, a benefit of EST membership, is an opportunity for EST Member Artists to self-produce a reading in the EST space. Members can present any work in progress they have written or are interested in supporting at any stage of its development.

*denotes EST Member Artist

 a Memberfest Reading of

All of Us

written by Delphi Harrington*, Holli Harms*, Abigail Gampel*, Helen Coxe*, Lisa Barnes, Kim Reed, and Brigitte Viellieu-Davis*

Tuesday, June 21 at 7pm

Reservations Required
Ensemble Studio Theatre, 2nd Floor
545 West 52nd Street, 2nd Floor

All audience members will be required to show proof of full vaccination (either 2 doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or 1 dose of the Johnson & Johnson) and to wear a mask while in the building.

About Memberfest

We are excited to have Memberfest resume this June. Memberfest, a benefit of EST membership, is an opportunity for EST Member Artists to self-produce a reading in the EST space. Members can present any work in progress they have written or are interested in supporting at any stage of its development.

*denotes EST Member Artist

 a Memberfest Reading of

Casting Cordelia

written by Kate Long*, directed by Eric Conger*

Tuesday, June 14 at 7pm

Reservations Required
Ensemble Studio Theatre, 2nd Floor
545 West 52nd Street, 2nd Floor

All audience members will be required to show proof of full vaccination (either 2 doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or 1 dose of the Johnson & Johnson) and to wear a mask while in the building.

About Memberfest

We are excited to have Memberfest resume this June. Memberfest, a benefit of EST membership, is an opportunity for EST Member Artists to self-produce a reading in the EST space. Members can present any work in progress they have written or are interested in supporting at any stage of its development.

*denotes EST Member Artist

 a Memberfest Reading of

[landscape play]

written and directed by Colette Robert*

Tuesday, June 7 at 7pm

Reservations Required
Ensemble Studio Theatre, 2nd Floor
545 West 52nd Street, 2nd Floor

All audience members will be required to show proof of full vaccination (either 2 doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or 1 dose of the Johnson & Johnson) and to wear a mask while in the building.

About Memberfest

We are excited to have Memberfest resume this June. Memberfest, a benefit of EST membership, is an opportunity for EST Member Artists to self-produce a reading in the EST space. Members can present any work in progress they have written or are interested in supporting at any stage of its development.

*denotes EST Member Artist

EST/Sloan Project presents a Reading of

GOOD HAIR

written by Phaedra Michelle Scott

featuring Caturah Brown, Arshia Panicker, & Kedren Spencer

Told through three entangled timelines, Good Hair weaves together the lives of women and the central question: Does the cost of beauty outweigh the proof of science?

Rachel E. Winfield, Stage Manager

This reading will be held in-person at the Ensemble Studio Theatre. You can learn more about our current Covid policies and protocols here. Reservations are required.

Phaedra Michelle Scott is a playwright and screenwriter based in New York City. She is currently a member of Youngblood with Ensemble Studio Theater. Her recent work includes the Colt Coer podcast PLEASURE MACHINE. Her plays included DIASPORA! (commissioned by SpeakEasy Stage), GOOD HAIR (recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant). She is a past resident at SPACE on Ryder Farm for her play PLANTATION BLACK, and former member of Pipeline Theater Company's PlayLab. She is currently in development with CBS/Showtime for an upcoming television show. She is a crocheter, horror fan and obscure history enthusiast. She/Her/Hers. www.phaedrascott.com

EST/Sloan Project presents a Reading of

The Reservoir

written by Jake Brasch

directed by Dara Malina

A lost, queer, neurotic mess of a twenty-something moves home to get sober. Struggling with memory loss, he finds unlikely allies in his four grandparents.

This reading will be held in-person at the Ensemble Studio Theatre. You can learn more about our current Covid policies and protocols here. Reservations are required.

Jake Brasch (he/they) is a Queer + Jewish + Coloradan + Playwright + Composer + Performer + Clown. Proud member of Ensemble Studio Theatre's Youngblood, the 2021-2022 Art House INKubator cohort, The Farm Theater’s Development Workshop, and The LAByrinth Intensive Ensemble. Jake's work has been developed by The New Ohio, The Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Farm Theater, The Tank, Dixon Place, Curious Theatre Company, DSA at the Edinburgh Fringe, The 14th St Y, Planet Connections, and The New Studio on Broadway at NYU. Currently under commission from The EST/Sloan Project and The Farm Theater's College Collaboration Project. As a composer, Jake has scored several films, plays, and podcasts. BFA: NYU Tisch: New Studio on Broadway/Experimental Theatre Wing. jakebrasch.com

EST/Sloan Project presents a Reading of

Las Borinqueñas

written by Nelson Diaz-Marcano

directed by Rebecca Aparicio

This is the story of the first birth control pill mass trial and the Puerto Rican women that served as tribute for the miracle to occur.

This reading will be held in-person at the Ensemble Studio Theatre. You can learn more about our current Covid policies and protocols here. Reservations are required.

Nelson Diaz-Marcano is a Puerto Rican NYC-based theater maker, advocate, and community leader.

EST/Sloan Project presents a Reading of

The Moderate

written by Ken Urban

directed by Steve Cosson
featuring Victor Almanzar, Georgi James, Samuel H. Levine, Aurora Real de Asua, & Danielle Skraastad

Unemployed during a pandemic, and estranged from his wife and son, Frank accepts a job as a content moderator content for the world’s largest social media company. This job takes a heavy toll on Frank until he realizes he might have the power to save both a stranger and himself.

This reading will be held in-person at the Ensemble Studio Theatre. You can learn more about our current Covid policies and protocols here. Reservations are required.

Ken Urban is a playwright and screenwriter. His plays include A GUIDE FOR THE HOMESICK (Huntington Theatre Company, London's West End), THE REMAINS (Studio Theatre), SENSE OF AN ENDING (59E59 Theatres, London’s Theatre503), NIBBLER (The Amoralists and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), THE CORRESPONDENT (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), THE AWAKE (59E59 Theatres, First Floor Theater), and THE HAPPY SAD (Summer Play Festival @ The Public Theatre). Awards include Weissberger Playwriting Award, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Independent Reviewers of New England’s Award for Best New Script, Headlands Artist Residency, Dramatist Guild Fellowship, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellowship, and MacDowell Colony Fellowships. He is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and affiliated writer at the Playwrights’ Center. Ken wrote the screenplay for the feature-film adaptation of THE HAPPY SAD, directed by Rodney Evans. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service. He leads the band Occurrence and their latest album I HAVE SO MUCH LOVE TO GIVE dropped last August. The band is currently finishing a new double album called SLOW VIOLENCE. Ken teaches dramatic writing at MIT. He taught writing at Harvard University, Princeton University, Tufts University, and Davidson College. His first TV pilot THE ART OF LISTENING was optioned by Madison Wells Media. Ken went to Bucknell University to study Chemical Engineering and left with a degree in English and a writing habit. He earned a Ph.D in English from Rutgers University. He lives in Washington Heights with his partner Johnny.

EST/Sloan Project presents a Reading of

Beyond Words

written by Laura Maria Censabella

directed by Linsay Firman
featuring Maggie Bofill, Carson Elrod, Michael Frederic, Patrick Halley, Wonjung Kim, Jason Liebman, & Alysia Reiner

Dr. Irene Pepperberg studies the cognitive and communicative abilities of Grey parrots in this offbeat and unexpected 30-year love story between scientist and research subject. What price does a woman scientist pay in trying to talk with the animals?

This reading will be held in-person at the Ensemble Studio Theatre. You can learn more about our current Covid policies and protocols here. Reservations are required.

Ms. Censabella’s play Paradise (IRNE Award Best New Play, Elliott Norton Nomination Outstanding New Script, Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Science Foundation Commission) made its sold-out U.S. west coast premiere in L.A. at The Odyssey Theatre (Viola Davis and Julius Tennon, producers) and premiered on the east coast at Underground Railway at Central Square Theater, as part of CST's Catalyst Collaborative@MIT science/theater partnership. She then wrote the screenplay for Vicangelo Films and JuVee Productions and an audio podcast version of the play opened LATW’s 2021-22 season. Ms. Censabella is the recipient of the $10,000 Saroyan/Paul Human Rights Playwriting Prize for her play Carla Cooks The War, three grants in Playwriting and Screenwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and two Daytime Emmy Awards. Other plays and musicals have been developed or produced at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays, the Women’s Project and Productions, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Portland Stage, the New Harmony Project, Gulfshore Playhouse, The Working Theatre, Luna Stage, Passage Theatre and Urban Stages, among others. She directs the Ensemble Studio Theatre Playwrights Unit and teaches at The New School, School of Drama where she received the Distinguished University Wide Teaching Award. She is a graduate of Yale where she studied with Wole Soyinka, Nikos Psacharopoulos, Michael Roemer, Anthony Davis and Henry Louis Gates, and is a proud member of HONOR ROLL! an action and advocacy group of women+ playwrights over 40.

EST/Sloan Project presents a Reading of

Circumstances Affecting the Heat of the Sun's Rays

written by Amanda Quaid

directed by Colette Robert
featuring Andrus Nichols, Will Dagger, Elise Kibler, Emma Kikue, Sean McIntyre, & David Shih

A story about amateur scientist Eunice Foote, one big discovery, scientific legacy, and ever-rising levels of carbon dioxide.

Mariel Sanchez, Stage Manager

This reading will be held in-person at the Ensemble Studio Theatre. You can learn more about our current Covid policies and protocols here. Reservations are required.

Amanda Quaid’s plays include The Clam (Playing on Air, a winner of the 2019 James Stevenson Prize), The Extinctionist (EST Marathon of One-Act Plays), and Echo and Narcissus (Red Bull Short New Play Festival). Libretto: The Extinctionist (upcoming at Heartbeat Opera). Screenplay: English. Other works have been read and developed by Colt Coeur, Culture Project, HB Playwrights, and the National Arts Club. Amanda also directed and animated an award-winning stop-motion short film called Toys, which was screened across North America as part of LUNAFEST.

join us Thursday, December 2 at 8pm EST for our annual

EST/SLOAN PROJECT ARTIST CULTIVATION EVENT

A free-wheeling, far-ranging discussion between scientists and playwrights about science, story-telling, and what makes plays work. Our annual EST/Sloan Project Artist Cultivation Event is a great opportunity for any playwright interested in developing a play about science & technology.

So far, this year's panelists include Jad Abumrad (founder/co-host of Radiolab), Sam Chanse (What You are Now, 2022 EST/Sloan), Karine Gibbs (Associate Professor in Plant & Microbial Biology at University of California, Berkeley), Lucas Hnath (Dana H., Isaac's Eye, 2013 EST/Sloan), and Mandë Holford (Associate Professor in Chemistry at Hunter College and CUNY-Graduate Center), with moderator Rich Kelley.

Applications for this year’s EST/Sloan commissions are open now through January 15, 2022.

This virtual event will be held on Zoom and is free to attend, though registration is required. Once registered, you will receive the event access link in your confirmation email - be sure and hold onto it!

THIS YEAR’S PANELISTS

Jad Abumrad is the host and creator of Radiolab, a public radio program broadcast on nearly 600 stations and downloaded more than 12 million times a month as a podcast. He employs his dual backgrounds as composer and journalist to create what’s been called “a new aesthetic” in broadcast journalism. He orchestrates dialogue, music, interviews, and sounds into compelling documentaries that draw listeners into investigations of otherwise intimidating topics, such as the nature of numbers, the evolution of altruism, or the legal foundation for the war on terror. Abumrad has won three George Foster Peabody Awards, and in 2011, he was honored as a MacArthur Fellow. He also created and hosted three seasons of More Perfect, a series about untold stories of the Supreme Court, which The New York Times called “. . . possibly the most mesmerizing podcast.” And in 2019, he co-created Dolly Parton’s America, a Peabody Award-winning nine-part series that explores a divided America through the life and music of one of its greatest icons.

Sam Chanse’s plays include Monument, or Four Sisters (A Sloth Play); Trigger; Fruiting Bodies; and What You Are Now. Her work has recently been developed with The Civilians, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Ars Nova,  NAATCO, Magic Theatre, Ma-Yi, and the Lark, and is published by Kaya Press (Lydia’s Funeral Video) and TCG (The Kilroys List). Commissions include NAATCO (Out of Time), Workshop Theatre, and EST/Sloan Project.  She is a past fellow at MacDowell, the Lark Venturous Fund (Trigger),  Cherry Lane Mentor Project (The Opportunities of Extinction), and Playwrights Realm (The Other Instinct), and an alum of New York Stage and Film’s inaugural NEXUS project, Ars Nova’s Play Group and the Civilians R&D Group. She has also received residencies from Sundance Theatre Institute, Djerassi, and SPACE at Ryder Farm.  A native New Yorker, she served for some years as artistic director of San Francisco-based Kearny Street Workshop. She is a writer on ABC’s The Good Doctor, and has taught at Columbia University, NYU, University of Rochester, and elsewhere. She is a member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, Dramatists Guild, and WGAE, and a resident playwright at New Dramatists.

Dr. Gibbs studies big, complex behaviors of small organisms, particularly bacteria’s ability to recognize themselves and form territories, much like how birds flock together and wolves form packs. In her lab, they use molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry, and live imaging (at both macro and micro scales) to characterize subcellular processes and cellular development and visualize and quantify social behaviors. Focusing on the shape-shifting, fast-moving bacterium Proteus mirabilis, her research tackles questions such as: how does a sense of identity shape the way bacteria assemble and move as a collective, and in turn, how does this affect growth and virulence?

Dr. Gibbs joined the University of California, Berkeley as an Associate Professor in Plant & Microbial Biology in 2020. Previously, she was an Associate Professor in Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University and a recipient of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship for Science and Engineering. Dr. Gibbs received a B.A. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Stanford University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington. Running is a favored hobby, having trained and competed in high school and collegiate track and field. She has had some of her most fascinating conversations during shared morning jogs at conferences or bicycle rides home from the lab.

Lucas Hnath received a 2017 Tony Award nomination for Best Play with A Doll’s House, Part 2. Hnath’s other plays include Hillary and Clinton, The Thin Place, Red Speedo, The Christians, A Public Reading Of An Unproduced Screenplay About The Death of Walt Disney, Issac’s Eye, and Death Tax. He has been produced on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre, Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep, and Ensemble Studio Theatre. His plays have also premiered at the Humana Festival of New Plays, Victory Gardens, and South Coast Repertory. He is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect, a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, and an alumnus of New Dramatists. Awards: Whiting Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Kesselring Prize, Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Play, Obie Award for Playwriting, Steinberg Playwright Award, and the Windham-Campbell Literary Prize.

Dr. Mandë Holford is an Associate Professor in Chemistry at Hunter College and CUNY-Graduate Center, with scientific appointments at The American Museum of Natural History and Weill Cornell Medicine. Her research, from mollusks to medicine, combines -omic technologies with chemical biology to examine venoms and venomous animals as agents of change and innovation in evolution and in manipulating cellular physiology in pain and cancer. She is active in science education, advancing the public understanding of science, and science diplomacy. She co-founded Killer Snails, LLC, an award winning EdTech learning games company. Her honors include being named: a 2020 Sustainability Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, Breakthrough Women in Science by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and NPR’s Science Friday, a Wings WorldQuest Women of Discovery fellow, an NSF CAREER awardee, and a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. Her Ph.D. is from The Rockefeller University, USA.

Rich Kelley has served as the Science Press Liaison for The EST/Sloan Project since 2009. He also contributes interviews and blog posts to the EST/Sloan blog and creates panels for post-performance talkbacks. A book publishing veteran, Rich is currently VP/Strategic Partner with Bridget Marmion Book Marketing, where he specializes in content development, email marketing, online advertising, SEO, social media coaching, and website optimization.

Photo Credits: Lizzie Johnston (Jad Abumrad), Adam Sings in the Timber (Karine Gibbs), DFinnin_AMNH (Mandë Holford)