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.