Anne Pusey on Jane Goodall for HAVE YOU MET JANE GOODALL AND HER MOTHER?

The world premiere of the 2025 EST/Sloan Project production, HAVE YOU MET JANE GOODALL AND HER MOTHER?, written by Michael Walek and directed by Linsay Firman, begins previews on March 5 at the Ensemble Studio Theatre and runs through March 30. You can purchase tickets here.

This 2024/2025 season marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the EST/Sloan Project, the joint initiative between the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Ensemble Studio Theatre “designed to stimulate artists to create credible and compelling work exploring the worlds of science and technology and to challenge the existing stereotypes of scientists and engineers in the popular imagination.” In that spirit, we offer this profile of Jane Goodall by Anne Pusey, the director of the Jane Goodall Institute Research Center at Duke University.

Jane Goodall

By Anne Pusey

Louis Leakey with Jane Goodall Photo: Leakey Foundation Archive

In 1960, the scientific study of animal behavior, ethology, mostly concentrated on the instinctive behavior of birds, fish, and insects in their natural environments. Mammal behavior, as yet, was little studied. Enter Jane Goodall, a 26-year-old English woman of slender means who had saved up to go to Africa and, by good fortune, met the paleontologist Louis Leakey. Although she had no formal degrees, she had from the youngest age an intense interest in animals. She had read all the books on animals she could lay her hands on. Her improbable dream was to live among African animals and write about them. Impressed by her passion, her powers of observation, and her steely determination, Leakey employed her, and eventually he found a grant to send her, chaperoned by her mother, to Gombe Stream Reserve in Tanzania (then Tanganyika), where this play takes place.

Following the six months covered by the play, Goodall continued her intensive daily study of the Gombe chimpanzees, punctuated by breaks at Cambridge University, where she worked towards a Ph.D. She was eventually joined by National Geographic photographer Hugo van Lawick and an increasing number of assistants and students. She named the individual chimpanzees as soon as she could reliably recognize them, described, filmed, and photographed the many extraordinarily human-like gestures they use to assert dominance, submission, beg for food, seek reassurance, hug, kiss, and groom each other. She described their complex social structure, including dominance hierarchies and striving for alpha status among the males; affectionate mother-infant bonds that continued long beyond weaning; close social bonds among adults that persisted for years; and empathetic behavior, including the adoption of orphans by older siblings and even unrelated members of the group. Through careful description of behavior, expressions, and vocalizations, Goodall showed that chimpanzees express human-like emotions of fear, joy, anger, and depression and that individuals had markedly different personalities. Some of these claims were met early on with incredulity and accusations of anthropomorphism, but study of emotions, minds, and personality in animals have since become mainstream fields of research.

“Some of Goodall’s claims were met early on with incredulity . . . but study of emotions, minds, and personality in animals have since become mainstream fields of research.”

While noting many similarities to human behavior, including aggression, Goodall initially believed that chimpanzees were somewhat nicer. However, in the 1970s, she discovered a darker side. What was formerly one big group started to split into two, and the former companions became increasingly hostile to each other. Goodall and her team documented how males from one group cooperated to patrol their territory and systematically attacked and killed males, and even one female, of the other group until the group was annihilated and the victorious group took over their range. Such out-group hostility and in-group cooperation continue to be observed at Gombe and have since been observed at other sites where scientists have set up similar long-term studies of chimpanzees to Goodall’s, raising the likelihood that human warfare has deep evolutionary roots.

The December 1965 issue of National Geographic featured the first cover article by Jane Goodall, “New Discoveries Among Africa’s Chimpanzees”

From the early years of Goodall’s work at Gombe, in addition to scientific papers, she wrote vivid articles for National Geographic and books for a popular audience. The National Geographic films of Jane living among the chimpanzees and their complex behavior captured worldwide attention. Her 1971 book, In the Shadow of Man, became an instant bestseller. Not only did it inspire generations of budding young scientists to follow in her footsteps and set up long-term field studies of other species, such as elephants, lions, and dolphins, but it also had a profound influence on how people in broader fields thought about humans’ place in nature.

In 1986, Goodall completed and published her magnificent and comprehensive scientific book on chimpanzees, The Chimpanzees of Gombe. A conference on chimpanzees was organized in Chicago to celebrate this publication, at which, in addition to field research, the dire challenges facing chimpanzees in captivity and the wild were discussed. As Goodall has put it, she went into the conference a scientist, planning Volume 2 of her book and determined to spend the rest of her life as a researcher at Gombe, and came out an activist. She realized that she must use her fame and influence to improve the plight of chimpanzees everywhere.

“Due to Goodall’s activism, no chimpanzees are now used for research in the U.S. or most other countries”

Under the auspices of the Jane Goodall Institute, founded in 1978 to support Gombe research, she started by working with colleagues to improve the conditions of lab chimpanzees used in medical research, which were often housed for years by themselves in five-foot-square cages. Now, no chimpanzees are used for research in the U.S. or most other countries, and the remaining chimpanzees from the NIH reside in social groups in spacious sanctuaries. She also helped set up sanctuaries for orphaned chimpanzees in Africa that are casualties of logging and the bushmeat trade, and she campaigned against the use of chimpanzees in the entertainment industry. To help staunch further destruction of chimpanzee habitats, her TACARE program of community-centered conservation, initiated in the villages around Gombe in Tanzania but now expanded to other areas and countries, helps empower local people to improve their livelihoods by setting up village land management plans, forest reserves, more sustainable agriculture, and improved health and education for women. Perhaps dearest to her heart is her Roots & Shoots program, started with students in Dar es Salaam to involve young people in projects that care for animals, people, and their local environment. This now has groups in more than 60 countries.

Jane planting trees in 2020 with Roots and Shoots participants Photo: Gant By Morten Bjarnhof

In recognition of her science and her advocacy, Goodall has received honorary degrees from countless universities. She has been awarded every available international conservation prize and medal, she is a Dame of the British Empire, a UN Messenger of Peace, and, most recently, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Biden. At 90, she continues to travel and give talks around the world 300 days a year. Her talks have an extraordinary ability to inspire compassionate action. She begins with the story of her career, describes chimpanzee life, then moves on to the problems facing the planet. Then she emphasizes her reasons for hope: human ingenuity, the resilience of nature, the energy of youth, and the indomitable human spirit. She ends to standing ovations with the message that every individual matters and that the actions of every individual make a difference to the well-being of our world. She goes on, as she says, because she must.

Jane Goodall with Anne Pusey at Duke University (Photo: Megan Morr, Duke University Press Office)

About the Author: Anne Pusey is James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emerita of Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University and director of the Jane Goodall Institute Research Center at Duke University. Since the 1990s, she has been archiving the data collected from the Gombe chimpanzee project in a computerized database she oversees. She has authored or co-authored 21 books, 114 journal entries, and six conference papers. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.

© Anne Pusey 2025

What Jane Goodall Has Taught Us About Chimpanzees

The world premiere of the 2025 EST/Sloan Project production, HAVE YOU MET JANE GOODALL AND HER MOTHER?, written by Michael Walek and directed by Linsay Firman, begins previews on March 5 at the Ensemble Studio Theatre and runs through March 30. You can purchase tickets here.

This 2024/2025 season marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the EST/Sloan Project, the joint initiative between the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Ensemble Studio Theatre “designed to stimulate artists to create credible and compelling work exploring the worlds of science and technology and to challenge the existing stereotypes of scientists and engineers in the popular imagination.” In that spirit, we offer this essay on Jane Goodall’s wide-ranging contributions to science.

What Jane Goodall Has Taught Us About Chimpanzees

By Rich Kelley

The brilliant new comedy, HAVE YOU MET JANE GOODALL AND HER MOTHER?, recreates the first six months of primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall’s first expedition to Tanganyika in 1960 to observe chimpanzees in the wild. The observations Goodall began then—and continued for thirty years—revolutionized our understanding of nonhuman primates. Primatology, ethology, and the practice of field observation have never been the same since.

The field work of Goodall and the colleagues she assembled in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania has led to major discoveries about chimpanzee behavior, communication, social structures, and even their darker tendencies. These discoveries not only reshaped scientific perceptions of chimpanzees but also challenged our understanding of the boundaries between humans and animals, calling attention to the profound similarities we share with our closest living relatives.

Consider the range of these findings:

Social Structures and Hierarchies

Chimpanzees live in dynamic communities that can range from fifteen to over one hundred.

Chimpanzee meeting Uganda Wildlife Conservation Centre Entebbe Uganda 2018 Photo Elisha Muwanguzi CC 4.0

As Jane Goodall documented, these communities have distinct hierarchies and are fluid, with members frequently splitting into smaller subgroups (parties) for activities like foraging, traveling, or resting. Unlike many other animals, chimpanzees form long-term bonds and maintain extensive social networks.

Chimpanzee communities are typically led by an alpha male, who gains his position through physical strength, intelligence, and familial and political alliances.

Alpha male chimpanzee walking at Kibale forest National Park, Uganda 2022  Photo: Giles Laurent CCA 4.0

Goodall observed that these dominant males have priority access to resources, mating opportunities, and influence over group decisions. But chimpanzee societies are not static. Power struggles, alliances, and betrayals are common, leading to frequent shifts in the social hierarchy. The alpha male is not necessarily the strongest individual but often the most socially adept, capable of manipulating group dynamics to maintain power. Goodall documented instances where lower-ranking males formed coalitions to overthrow an alpha male, demonstrating a level of strategic thinking and cooperation previously thought to be unique to humans.

Grooming is a vital social activity that serves both hygiene and social functions,

A group of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) grooming each other, Gombe Stream National Park 2010 Photo: ikiwaner GNU License 1.2

Grooming reduces tension and reinforces relationships within the group. Chimpanzees experience conflicts, but they also engage in reconciliation behaviors, such as embracing or grooming after a fight, to restore social harmony.

Maternal Bonds and Learning

Mother chimpanzees are highly attentive to their infants, carrying them constantly, nursing them, and protecting them from harm.

Chimpanzee mother climbing a tree with its baby at Kibale forest National Park, Uganda 2022 Photo: Giles Laurent CCA 4.0

Goodall observed that young chimpanzees spend several years heavily dependent on their mothers. This extended period of dependency allows for the transmission of knowledge and traditions across generations, a phenomenon previously thought to be unique to humans. Chimpanzee mothers provide comfort and reassurance to their infants. When a young chimp is frightened or upset, it will often run to its mother for safety and comfort. The bond between a mother and her offspring can last for many years, even after the young chimp reaches adulthood. Goodall observed adult chimpanzees maintaining close relationships with their mothers, often seeking their company and support. Daughters often mirrored the parenting behavior of their mothers.

Mothers teach their young critical skills, such as foraging food, using tools, and navigating social interactions.

Mother and child chimpanzees sharing food 2014 Photo by Blackseablue CCA 3.0

For example, Goodall observed mothers showing their offspring how to use sticks to extract termites from mounds or stones to crack nuts. These behaviors are not instinctual but are learned through observation, imitation, and practice. Mothers also engage in play with their infants, which helps the young chimps develop physical and social skills. This playful interaction strengthens their bond and prepares the infants for life within the group.

Individual Personalities

Goodall treated her chimpanzee subjects as individuals, giving them names, and demonstrated that they possess distinct personalities and temperaments. 

Jane Goodall grooming David Greybeard, the first chimp to lose his fear of her. (Photo: National Geographic Creative/Hugo Van Lawick)

One of the most enduring legacies of Goodall’s work is her recognition of individual personalities among chimpanzees. Giving subjects names rather than numbers was controversial at the time but it allowed Goodall to appreciate their unique traits and behaviors. Flo, for instance, she described as a nurturing and influential matriarch, while Mike was a clever and resourceful alpha male who used empty kerosene cans to intimidate rivals and assert dominance. “Gentle, calm, unafraid” David Graybeard has become famous as the chimpanzee who showed her that chimpanzees use tools.

Emotional Complexity and Empathy

Chimpanzees experience a wide range of emotions similar to those of humans, including grief.

One of the most poignant examples of chimpanzee empathy came from Goodall’s account of Flint, a young chimpanzee who exhibited profound grief after the death of his mother, Flo.

Video excerpt about Flo’s last days and Flint’s grief from The People of the Forest, The Chimps of Gombe (1988), Part 7, by Hugo Van Lawick (9:53)

Flint’s behavior—refusing to eat, becoming lethargic, and eventually dying himself on the same spot where his mother died—suggested that chimpanzees are capable of deep emotional attachments and can experience grief and loss in ways strikingly similar to humans. This discovery influenced scientists to reconsider the emotional capacities of animals and their ability to form meaningful relationships.

Communication and Vocalizations

Chimpanzees use a sophisticated communication system that allows them to coordinate activities, warn other of threats, and maintain social cohesion.

Learn the different sounds and gestures chimpanzees use to communicate. From Primate Models for Evolution Lab (4:09)

Goodall documented a wide array of vocalizations, gestures, and facial expressions that chimpanzees use to convey information and emotions. For example, she identified distinct calls for food, danger, and social interactions, each with specific meanings and contexts.

In addition to vocalizations, Goodall observed that chimpanzees use body language and gestures to communicate. For instance, a submissive chimpanzee might crouch or present its back to a dominant individual, while an aggressive chimpanzee might puff up its fur, stomp, or throw objects to intimidate rivals.

Hunting and Meat-Eating

Chimpanzees are not strictly herbivorous but also engage in hunting and meat eating.

Ugandan chimps hunting from Life of Mammals BBC Earth (3:40)

Before Goodall’s research, chimpanzees were thought to be primarily vegetarian, with occasional insect consumption. However, Goodall observed chimpanzees hunting and eating smaller primates, such as colobus monkeys, in coordinated group efforts. This behavior revealed a level of cooperation and planning previously unrecognized in nonhuman animals.

The hunting parties often involved strategic roles, with some chimpanzees acting as drivers to herd the prey while others ambushed or captured it. The group then shared the meat, though not always equally. Goodall noted that the distribution of meat often followed social lines, with dominant individuals receiving larger shares and using meat as a political tool to strengthen alliances or assert dominance. This discovery challenged the simplistic view of chimpanzees as peaceful vegetarians and demonstrated their capacity for violence and strategic thinking.

Conflict and Warfare

One finding that shocked Goodall was discovering how territorial and violent chimpanzees could become.

Goodall observed that chimpanzee communities will aggressively defend their territory from neighboring groups. In some cases, these conflicts escalated into brutal attacks, with groups of males patrolling their borders, ambushing rivals, and killing individuals from other communities.

World War Chimp | The Brutal 1974 - 1978 Gombe Chimpanzee War: Documentary (9:22)

 The most infamous example of chimpanzee warfare occurred during the Gombe Chimpanzee War, a four-year conflict between two rival groups, the Kasakela and the Kahama. Goodall and her team witnessed violent raids, kidnappings, killings of males and females, and even cannibalistic feasting on the flesh of newborns. Ultimately, the Kasakela group wiped out the Kahama. This extended conflict revealed a darker side of chimpanzee behavior, challenging the romanticized view of them as peaceful, harmonious creatures.

Michael Walek on Africa in 1960, research surprises, breaking the fourth wall, and HAVE YOU MET JANE GOODALL AND HER MOTHER?

Michael Walek

The world premiere of HAVE YOU MET JANE GOODALL AND HER MOTHER? the new comedy written by Michael Walek and directed by Linsay Firman will begin previews at the Ensemble Studio Theatre on Wednesday, March 5 and run through March 30, 2025. This will be the 2025 mainstage production of the EST/Sloan Project, the alliance between EST and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, now in its twenty-fifth year.

The play dramatizes the first months of twenty-six-year-old Jane Goodall’s first expedition to study chimpanzees in Africa, an expedition that changed how we view what makes us human.  But why did she bring her mother? To learn why, we asked the playwright.

 (Interview by Rich Kelley)

What prompted you to write HAVE YOU MET JANE GOODALL AND HER MOTHER?

When I was growing up, my mom loved Jane Goodall. We had her books in the house, and I thought I knew her story. A few years ago, I learned that when the Tanzanian government allowed Jane Goodall to study chimpanzees, they required she bring a chaperone, so she brought her mother. The idea of a scientist bringing her mother on her first expedition sounded like a play I wanted to write.

Jane Goodall and her mother Margaret “Vanne” Myfanwe Joseph in camp (Photo: Hugo Van Lawick, National Geographic Society)

What research did you do to write your play?

Tons of research. I read everything I could get my hands on from her journals to her family’s letters.

Your play creates vignettes that dramatize the first months Jane Goodall spends with her mother leading her first expedition to study chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) in 1960. How did you figure out what they sounded like? Did you work with her field notes?

Luckily, many of Jane and Vanne’s letters from that time were published, so it was easy to get a sense of their writing style, words they liked, nicknames they used. I found them to be utterly charming.

Is the relationship you dramatize between Jane and her mother your invention or based on something Jane wrote?  They are often quite funny. Is that from your imagination or based on your research?

Before I did my research, I assumed that any child living in a tent with her parent for five months would find it a stressful situation, only to discover that Jane and Vanne adored each other and never really fought. Suddenly, I had to write a play about two funny, kind people who encouraged and supported each other.

HAVE YOU MET JANE GOODALL AND HER MOTHER? had its first public reading as part of the 2019 First Light Festival. How has the play changed since then?

This is an entirely new play. After a great note session with Linsay and Graeme*, I decided to take the play in a completely different direction. It is a screwball comedy instead of a bio-play. More Noel Coward than Merchant-Ivory.

It’s always seemed a bit preposterous that the famed anthropologist Louis Leakey would choose a secretary with no academic background or field experience to lead an expedition into the thick mountainous terrain the chimpanzees inhabited. And be able to get funding for her. Why do you think he chose Jane?

Well, she wasn’t his first choice. Jane only found this out years later, but Leakey tried to get another scientist to go into the field, but she declined. I think a lot has been made out that she was “just a secretary.” She went on a human fossil dig with Leakey and worked with him at his museum in Kenya. She was a bit more qualified, but it makes a better story if she’s this random typist.

Jane Goodall grooming David Greybeard, the first chimp to lose his fear of her. (Photo: National Geographic Creative/Hugo Van Lawick)

Your play focuses on the first months Jane spent in Tanganyika in 1960 and what she discovered as the first person to study chimpanzees in the wild—but also her frustration at not being able to make the major discovery she had hoped for that would justify Louis Leakey’s faith in her. When did her breakthrough observation about how chimps make tools to collect termites actually occur?

In the play, all the facts about science are true. Jane really did make her discovery in the final weeks of her first stay in Tanganyika after her mother went home.

What would you like the audience to take away from seeing HAVE YOU MET JANE GOODALL AND HER MOTHER?

This is a hard question. I don’t know. It’s a big play. I want the audience to feel like they’ve gone on a journey with the cast and the characters. 

Will actors or puppets portray the chimpanzees on stage? What’s the plan?

It’s a surprise, but it’s going to be incredible. 

What background about Tanganyika in 1960 would it be useful for people to know?

Change was everywhere in Africa then. 1960 became known as The Year of Africa. Seventeen new African nations had joined the United Nations by December. While it does not cover Tanganyika specifically, The New York Times did an incredible special on The Year of Africa. It’s a fascinating look at a topic of history not covered by most American educational institutions.

Was Jane very savvy about how politically charged the world around her was in Tanganyika in 1960?

It’s so easy to look back and see history, but when you are living day-to-day, I don’t know if we have the same clarity. Jane Goodall was obviously smart. She lived in Nigeria for years before she went to Tangynika, so I am sure she was aware of what was going on. 

Did Jane ever have any dealings with Julius Nyerere, the first president of the new country of Tanzania?

Yes. Jane Goodall has so many remarkable chapters in her life. Her second husband Derek Bryceson was part of the Tanzanian parliament. They were good friends with Julius Nyerere and actually lived next door to him. The Swahili translation of Jane’s book, In the Shadow of Man, includes an introduction written by Nyerere. 

Young Jane Goodall with Jubilee (Photo: Courtesy of Jane Goodall Institute)

Much has been made of how Jubilee, a plush toy chimpanzee Jane was given as a child, may have determined her career. Were you ever given something as a child that shaped your life?

Again, I think this is some hindsight mythologizing. Jane would’ve studied birds if it was the assignment. It just happened to be chimpanzees. 

Your characters sometimes break the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience by commenting on or narrating the story. Why do you do that? How do you think that affects how the audience experiences the story?

I think theatre is best when it embraces the qualities that differentiate it from other art forms. Anything that draws attention to the storytelling quality of theatre—we’re all sitting in a dark room watching people pretend—excites me. I hope it forces the audience to actively use their imagination instead of passively watching. 

Have you ever gone camping for an extended time? Spent any time observing nature? Done field research?

I absolutely hate camping, and the outdoors, which I realize makes it hysterical I wrote this play.

When did you first know you were a playwright?

My high school had a play contest my senior year. I wrote a play, and it won. I wasn’t invited to rehearsals, so I just showed up one night and saw my play. There was a twist ending, and the audience gasped. I was completely hooked.

*Linsay Firman is Director of Play Development at EST and Program Director of the EST/Sloan Project. Graeme Gillis is Co-Artistic Director of EST.

HAVE YOU MET JANE GOODALL AND HER MOTHER? the new comedy written by Michael Walek and directed by Linsay Firman will begin previews on March 5 and run through March 30, 2025 at the Ensemble Studio Theatre. You can find more information here.  

Emily Chadick Weiss on climate change, Rachel Carson, plays about Trump, and SPRAY

Emily Chadick Weiss Photo: Molly Hagan

What motivates someone to become an activist? And what sustains the energy of that activism? Biologist Rachel Carson was already an acclaimed nature writer when she decided she must write about the dangers of pesticides. In her riveting new play SPRAY, Emily Chadick Weiss focuses on the last eight years of Carson’s life, when her work on her classic bestseller Silent Spring coincided with the first deep relationship of her life, her new role as an adoptive mother, and her enervating battle with cancer.

SPRAY will have its first public reading at 3:00 PM on December 12 at the Ensemble Studio Theater as part of the Fall 2024 EST/Sloan First Light Festival. The reading is free and reservations are encouraged.

We spritzed Emily with questions about her play. She showered us with answers.

(Interview by Rich Kelley)

How did SPRAY originate?

I found a postcard collection that featured various female scientists and after reading about each one, I found Rachel Carson’s story the most fascinating. That was probably back in 2017. I’ve been tinkering with how to dramatize her legacy ever since.

What kind of research did you do?

I focused on her biography, Rachel Carson, Witness for Nature by Linda Lear, the book of letters with her friend Dorothy Freeman, Always Rachel, and her groundbreaking book, Silent Spring. 

Were you able to find Rachel Carson’s voice in her writing?

I don’t know if I captured Rachel’s voice in this play but I hope I captured her intention — both to save nature and humanity by reducing our reliance on chemicals and to have company in her quest by connecting so frequently over letters with her close friend Dorothy Freeman.

Stanley and Dorothy Freeman watch as their friend and Southport neighbor author Rachel Carson greets a squirrel.  Photo: Susan Johns

It’s estimated that Rachel and Dorothy Freeman exchanged some 900 letters over their lifetime. How would you characterize their relationship?

I believe they had the most romantic relationship over their letter correspondence but we’ve only been able to read the non-romantic letters since they hid the “apples” elsewhere …

Rachel’s mother Maria is also in the play. She kindly typed all of Rachel’s books. What was their relationship like?

In Linda Lear’s biography of Rachel, Maria is portrayed as being envious of Rachel’s close relationships with other people. But I think Maria was also very encouraging of Rachel’s academic passions, especially since they were unusual for a woman in the years up to and including the 1960s.

Did your experience as a writer for the PBS children’s show “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” help in creating Roger, Rachel’s 5-year-old nephew?

I would say my experience raising a young boy, Robin, now 6, helped me find a place for the presence of Roger in the play. “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” does help me raise Robin, however!

Did you discover anything surprising about Rachel Carson as you wrote SPRAY?

Throughout my research and writing of SPRAY, I have been in awe of how much Rachel put on her plate — not only did she make a point of publicizing her research on dangerous pesticides to the world in a very controversial way, but she also raised her niece and great nephew when no one else could take care of them, despite her never wanting children. 

Rachel Carson speaking before Senate Government Operations subcommittee studying pesticide spraying. United Press International photo, 1963. Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.

Why this play? Why now?

We should be aware of all climate change heroes even if humankind is not capable of saving itself.

What do you want the audience to take away from SPRAY?

I’d like us all to come away thinking about what we fight for and don’t bother to fight for. I’d like people to see some of the highs and lows of Rachel Carson’s life and perhaps learn more about her as they ride the train, read their phones, etc.

What do you see as Rachel Carson’s legacy? What should people know about her today?

Rachel Carson is one of the early activists in the environmental movement of the 1960s. JFK started enacting legislation because of her book Silent Spring.

What is your favorite experience of nature?

The yearly surprise of leaves changing color in the Fall, the magic of rainbows and double rainbows, a clear view of the billions of stars at night, and the humbling repetition and volatility of the ocean.

You were a member of EST’s Youngblood program for eight years. What impact did that have on how you write plays – and on your playwriting career?

I discovered I love writing ten-minute plays and I often conceive new ideas in the ten-minute format. It can be satisfying to write just a moment vs. an entire journey.

From left, Dawn McGee, Marcia Jean Kurtz and Keola Simpson in “The Fork” at the EST 2017 Marathon of One Act Plays Photo: Gerry Goodstein

The New York Times included “The Fork,” your contribution to the 2017 EST Marathon of One-Act Plays, in its 2021 retrospective, “How Theater Stepped Up to Meet the Trump Era.” I was among those who joined in what the Times describes as the “delighted, unhesitating laughter” at a comedy about killing the president. The reviewer found that response “as jarring at the time as it was telling about the state of our civic health.”  What do you have in store for the former president’s new term?

I do have a sequel in mind for “The Fork”…

What’s next for Emily Chadick Weiss?

I’ll probably be writing about another exceptional female scientist soon, and finding homes for my plays, TV and films. I pray that in 2028 or in my goddamn lifetime, I will be someone who voted in our first female president.

SPRAY is one of three readings of new plays in development as part of the EST/Sloan Project in the Fall 2024 First Light Festival, which runs from October 24 through December 12. The festival is made possible through the alliance between the Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  

SEVAN on nuclear science in 1950s U.S., Samira Mussa Aly, fear of what’s foreign, and MISS CURIE OF THE EAST

SEVAN

What did a brilliant, young, foreign, Muslim woman nuclear scientist have to contend with working in the top secret world of nuclear power in the U.S. in the early 1950s? Samira Mussa Aly, Egypt’s first nuclear scientist, died at 35 under mysterious circumstances, less than two years after beginning her research in the U.S. In the chilling new play, MISS CURIE OF THE EAST, SEVAN pulls together the fragments of what’s known to reconstruct the remarkable life of a scientist who could have irrevocably changed the world had it not been for her gender, her religion, and her nationality.

MISS CURIE OF THE EAST will have its first public reading at 3:00 PM on November 14 at the Ensemble Studio Theater as part of the Fall 2024 EST/Sloan First Light Festival. The reading is free and reservations are encouraged.

We had so many questions; SEVAN answered all of them (answers edited for this interview)..

(Interview by Rich Kelley)

What inspired you to write MISS CURIE OF THE EAST?

Samira Mussa Aly (Public Domain)

Growing up, I was aware of the contributions from Arabs and Muslims to many areas during the Golden Age of Islam, but I found my knowledge of contemporary contributions lacking. When I was looking for inspiration, as I was filling out my EST/Sloan application, I came across a short snippet about Samira Mussa Aly, which led me down the rabbit hole of her life and the history of nuclear politics of the time.

I found her and her life absolutely fascinating and remarkable. I was also inspired by the half-life of nuclear particles as a structural jumping off point for the construction of the bones of the play. The story fits in with my mission as a writer of plays that build bridges across cultures, communities, and countries in an effort to expand awareness and understanding beyond stereotypes and archetypes. I want to expose people from all sides of the cultural fences to stories of the unknown or forgotten.

Why this play? Why now?

Given the current politics of and surrounding Middle Eastern, Arab, and Muslim communities and countries, there is a growing hesitation to and avoidance of supporting MENA artists and narratives. While this play doesn't directly relate to current politics, some might find it too “dangerous” and “risky” because stories that humanize and pluralize The Other are always dangerous and risky. They might lead to, God forbid, empathy and understanding. So, while I believe we NEED stories like this, especially in times like now, I am not so naive to think anyone is going to be brave enough to come near it or to have their personal politics shifted and questioned.

Your play is based on a historical figure, the nuclear scientist Samira Mussa Aly. You note in your script that there is a great deal of mystery and mythology and conflicting facts about her life. How did you decide what to include?

This was fun and frustrating. With the help of Dina Abd El-Aziz (an Egyptian costume designer) I was able to get a hold of her biography which only exists in Egypt. I translated it and found it full of inconsistencies and that it sometimes contradicted itself. Finding her PhD thesis was also helpful.

I went through three rounds of research.  In every round, facts and information changed and new things suddenly appeared online. I thought I was losing my mind. I was sure that at any moment Black Ops were going to burst through my door and seize me. Thankfully, there are some concrete pieces of evidence which helped me connect all the red strings so I could figure out some kind of' “factual” story.

For example, the oft repeated story is that she was heading to a party in California when her car mysteriously drove off a cliff but at the crash site the driver's body was never found. Juicy stuff, right? But there are several news articles about the accident and her death that show it happened nowhere near California. At a certain point, I had to take what I knew to be fact and what I knew of the politics of the time and craft a narrative that best paid homage to her and to the time.

Do you have a theory about what caused her death? She was very active in working for the peaceful use of nuclear power. You show her addressing the first international Atoms for Peace conference she organized in London in 1952. Do you think her work for Atoms for Peace led to her death later that year?

Samira Mussa Aly aka Sameera Moussa (Photo: Beyond Curie)

Oh, I definitely have a theory. She had been a visiting scientist in the U.S. for a little more than a year and was being escorted around the United States by an Air Force civilian employee shortly before she was due to return home. It's possible this was an assassination, and certainly some facts point to it, but it might very well have just been a car accident. A few years after her death there was a rampant spate of mysterious deaths of Arab and Muslim scientists. But I don't think her work with Atoms for Peace caused her death, especially since Eisenhower stole her idea and the conference name to start the “first” atomic peace conference in the United States the following year. Her work was always being stolen and co-opted.

What do you want the audience to take away from seeing MISS CURIE OF THE EAST?

A remarkable story of a remarkable woman and a broadening of their understanding of what it means to be Arab or Muslim outside of the stereotypes and fear mongering that have taken over our lives.

What is the legacy of Samira Mussa Aly today?

Well, she doesn't have one, at least not one that is known outside of Egypt, which is why this play is important. We can thank her for all the current x-ray and radiation technologies we still use all over the world.

In addition to being a playwright, you have had a parallel career as an actor in numerous plays, television shows, and films. How has your work as an actor informed your playwriting?

Becoming a writer was an accident. During my first year in NYC, a fellow actor strong-armed me into writing for the Arab American Comedy Festival and that was it. I started to dabble some more, got into The Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group and thought, "Alright, I suppose I better focus, shouldn't I?" Being an actor helped so much in understanding how to craft interesting dialogue for actors to speak; how to shape scenes and plays for their maximum effect. It wasn't until I moved to London for a few years that I was able to sit down and understand playwriting as craft and technique. That work also helped inform my acting process. 

What playwrights have influenced you the most?

Euripides, Caryl Churchill, José Rivera, Yussef El Guindi, Simon Stephens, Tanika Gupta, Neil Simon, debbie tucker green.

What’s next for SEVAN?

I am a part of the Playwright Center's open season. In February, I'll be presenting a workshop performance of How to Watch an Immigrant Have a Racial Nervous Breakdown which is an audience-immersive solo musical performance that portrays the Neither-Here-Nor-There experience of 7 different MENASA immigrant characters navigating their new lives and identities in the West while asking how and if they can truly belong.

MISS CURIE OF THE EAST is one of three readings of new plays in development as part of the EST/Sloan Project in the Fall 2024 First Light Festival, which runs from October 24 through December 12. The festival is made possible through the alliance between the Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.   

Radiolab Host Latif Nasser, Biochemist Mandë Holford, Neuroscientist Daniela Schiller join Playwrights Sam Chanse & Lloyd Suh & Science Editor Sophie Bushwick for 2024 EST/Sloan Zoom Event

Top row, from left: Latif Nasser, Mandë Holford, Daniela Schiller

Bottom row, from left: Sam Chanse, Lloyd Suh, Sophie Bushwick

Where do ideas for plays come from? How do you develop a play? How is an EST/Sloan play different?

PLAYWRIGHTS! JOIN US ON TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2024 AT 8:00 PM ON ZOOM FOR THE 2024 EST/SLOAN ARTIST CULTIVATION VIRTUAL EVENT

The EST/Sloan Artist Cultivation Event is the annual far-ranging and free-wheeling discussion among scientists, science writers, and playwrights about science, storytelling, and what makes plays work. This year’s event will be online and is free for any playwright interested in developing a play about science or technology. Registration is required. Once registered, you will receive the event access link in your confirmation email. You can register here.

WHAT MAKES A PLAY ABOUT SCIENCE GREAT?

“To stimulate artists to create credible and compelling work exploring the worlds of science and technology and to challenge the existing stereotypes of scientists and engineers in the popular imagination.”—this has been the mission of The Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project (EST/Sloan Project, for short) for the past 25 years. Over that time the EST/Sloan Project has awarded more than $3 million in grants to some 300 playwrights and theater companies. More than 150 productions of EST/Sloan-developed plays have been mounted nationwide. Commissions range from $5,000 to $10,000.

Applications for this year’s EST/Sloan commissions are currently open and will be accepted through November 15, 2024. You can view previous commission recipients on the EST/Sloan webpage.

Two related events culminate each EST/Sloan season:

1) The First Light Festival is a months-long series of readings and workshops that showcase plays in development, and is currently in progress through December 12.

2) A full mainstage production of at least one work every season. Recent mainstage productions have included Franklinland by Lloyd Suh about William and Ben Franklin and experiments scientific and otherwise (currently running through November 3), Las Borinqueñas (2024) by Nelson Diaz-Marcano about the birth control pill trials in Puerto Rico in the 1950s, Smart (2023) by Mary Elizabeth Hamilton about AI technology and trust, what you are now (2022) by Sam Chanse about memory and trauma, Behind the Sheet (2019) by Charly Evon Simpson about how American gynecology began with experiments on slaves (a NY Times Critic’s Pick), BUMP by Chiara Atik (2018) on pregnancy and childbirth, SPILL (2017) by Leigh Fondakowski on the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Boy (2016) by Anna Ziegler on sexual identity, Please Continue (2016) by Frank Basloe on Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments, Informed Consent (2015) by Deborah Zoe Laufer on scientific research and Alzheimer’s, Fast Company (2014) by Carla Ching on game theory and confidence games, Isaac’s Eye (2013) by Lucas Hnath on scientific method and rivalry, and Headstrong (2012) by Patrick Link on sports and concussions.

This year's Artist Cultivation Event panelists include:

Sam Chanse

Sam Chanse’s plays include What you are now (Ensemble Studio Theatre & The Civilians), Disturbance Specialist (The Public Theater & National Asian American Theatre Company’s Out of Time), Trigger (Lark Venturous Fellowship), Fruiting Bodies (Ma-Yi Theater), and Monument, or Four Sisters (A Sloth Play) (Magic Theatre). A resident playwright of New Dramatists, her work has also been developed with Ars Nova (P.S.), Cherry Lane (The Opportunities of Extinction), Playwrights’ Realm (The Other Instinct), New York Stage & Film, Boston Court, the Ojai Playwrights’ Conference, and is published by Kaya Press (Lydia’s Funeral Video) and TCG (The Kilroys List). She is a recipient of a 2024 Bret Adams & Paul Reisch Foundation Vivace Award with collaborators MILCK and AG, and is currently developing a new musical, The Family Album, as a commission of La Jolla Playhouse. Other commissions include EST/Sloan Project, NAATCO, Ars Nova, Workshop Theater, the University of Rochester, and the San Francisco Arts Commission. A former fellow of MacDowell, the Lark Venturous Theater Fund, Cherry Lane, Sundance Theatre Institute, and Playwrights Realm, she is a member of Dramatists Guild and WGAW, and wrote on three seasons of ABC’s The Good Doctor. Proud alum: Ars Nova’s Play Group, Civilians R&D Group, and the Ma-Yi Writers Lab.

Dr. Mandë Holford  Photo Credit: DFinnin_AMNH

Mandë Holford is a Professor in Chemistry at Hunter College and CUNY-Graduate Center, with scientific appointments at The American Museum of Natural History and Weill Cornell Medicine. The Holford Laboratory of Chemical and Biological Diversity demonstrates the scientific path from mollusks to medicine - examining how venoms evolved, developed, and function over time, and how we can use this knowledge as a roadmap for discovering and characterizing peptide natural products with therapeutic potential. She is particularly interested in using venoms and venom peptides to study rapidly evolving genes and to develop invertebrate venom gland model systems that can be genetically manipulated to advance discoveries in novel gene regulation, expression, and function. Her work combines scientific research, education and diplomacy to understand the extraordinary marine biodiversity on our planet and transform this knowledge for the benefit of human and planetary health. She is cofounder of Killer Snails, LLC, an award winning EdTech company that uses tabletop, digital, and XR games as a conduit to advance scientific learning in K-12 classrooms. 

Latif Nasser

Latif Nasser is co-host of the award-winning WNYC Studios show Radiolab, where he has reported stories on everything from snowflake photography to medieval robots to a polar bear who liked to have sex with grizzly bears. He also hosted the award-winning miniseries The Other Latif, about his Moroccan namesake who was Detainee 244 at Guantanamo Bay. In addition to his work in audio, Latif is the host and executive producer of the Netflix science documentary series, Connected.  He has also given two TED talks, and written for the Boston Globe Ideas section. He has a PhD from Harvard's History of Science department.

Dr. Daniela Schiller

Daniela Schiller is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, the Nash Family Department of Neuroscience, and the Friedman Brain Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Her research is focused on how the brain represents and modifies emotional memories. Schiller got her PhD in Tel Aviv University where she developed a laboratory model for negative symptoms of schizophrenia. She then continued to do a postdoctoral fellowship at New York University where she examined methods for emotional memory modification in the human brain. Schiller joined Mount Sinai in 2010 and has been directing the affective neuroscience laboratory since. Her lab has delineated the neural computations of threat learning, how the brain modifies emotional memories using imagination, and the dynamic tracking of affective states and social relationships. Schiller’s work has been published in numerous scholarly journals, including Nature, Neuron, Nature Neuroscience, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She is a Fulbright Fellow and a Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow, and has been the recipient of many awards, including the New York Academy of Sciences’ Blavatnik Award, and the Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship Award in the Neurosciences. 

Lloyd Suh

Lloyd Suh is the author of The Chinese Lady (Ma-Yi at The Public Theater), Bina's Six Apples (Alliance Theatre and Children's Theatre Company), Charles Francis Chan Jr.'s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery, The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra Go!, Franklinland, and more, including The Heart Sellers, (Milwaukee Rep). His play The Far Country (Atlantic Theatre) was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His work has been produced at theaters across the country, including Ensemble Studio Theatre, Magic Theatre, National Asian American Theatre Company, Denver Center, ArtsEmerson, Long Wharf and others, and internationally at the Cultural Center of the Philippines and with PCPA at the Guerilla Theatre in Seoul, Korea. Awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, Herb Alpert Award, Horton Foote Prize, and Helen Merrill Award. He was elected in 2016 to the Dramatists Guild Council. Starting in 2015, he has been a member of the Dramatists Guild Council. He joined The Lark as the Director of Artistic Programs in 2011. From 2005 to 2010 he was the Artistic Director of Second Generation and Co-Director of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab. He is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and an alum of Youngblood and the Soho Rep Writer Director Lab.

About the Moderator

Sophie Bushwick

Sophie Bushwick is a science and technology journalist based in New York City and is currently working as senior news editor at New Scientist. She has more than a decade of experience as a writer and editor at outlets including Scientific American, Popular Science, Discover Magazine and Gizmodo, and she continues to make regular appearances on Science Friday. Her work spans digital and print, podcasts and radio, TV news and TikTok.

Fifteen Fabulous Facts about Benjamin Franklin

This 2024/2025 season marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the EST/Sloan Project, the joint initiative between the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Ensemble Studio Theatre “designed to stimulate artists to create credible and compelling work exploring the worlds of science and technology and to challenge the existing stereotypes of scientists and engineers in the popular imagination.” In that spirit, we offer this second essay on the historical and scientific context of FRANKLINLAND, the Fall 2024 Mainstage Production of the EST/Sloan Project. FRANKLINLAND, written by Lloyd Suh and directed by Chika Ike, began previews at EST on October 9 and runs through November 3. You can purchase tickets here.

“If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading, or do something worth writing.”

By Rich Kelley

Over the 84 years of his life (1706–1790), Benjamin Franklin achieved renown in many diverse fields: diplomacy, engineering, journalism, politics, public works, science. Collected here are fifteen facts about some of his lesser-known achievements.

Swim fins (1717). Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania

Invented Swim Fins: Franklin was an avid swimmer in his youth. Swim fins, or paddles, were his first invention at age 11.  He wore them on his hands to help him move faster in water, earning him a place in the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

"Nature-printed" paper money produced by Franklin, incorporating leaf images. From Hesburgh Libraries of Notre Dame and doi:10.1073/pnas.230185612

Printed Beautiful and Hard to Counterfeit Money: In 1731, Franklin won a contract to print £40,000 for the Pennsylvania colony. To foil counterfeiters, Franklin experimented with various papers and inks and even created a cast of a sage leaf to print on his money. The leaf’s complex veins could not be easily imitated. Learn more from “What Benjamin Franklin Learned from Fighting Counnterfeiters.”

Compiled a “Drinker’s Dictionary”: In 1737, Franklin compiled a dictionary of over 200 terms for drunkenness, showcasing his linguistic creativity and providing a satirical look at the drinking habits of colonial America. Here are the entries under “D”:

He’s Disguis’d
He’s got a Dish
He’s kill’d his Dog
He’s took his Drops
It’s a Dark Day with him
He’s a Dead man
He’s Dipped his bill
He’s Dagged
He’s seen the Devil

For the complete list, see “The Drinker’s Dictionary”

Hoffman, Bernard - Artist. Ben Franklin, Citizen. 1952. Watercolors (Paintings). Free Library of Philadelphia: Philadelphia, PA. https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/55467.

Founded the First Volunteer Fire Department: Franklin started the Union Fire Company in Philadelphia in 1736, the first volunteer fire department in America. He served as the first volunteer fire chief of what was sometimes called “Franklin’s Bucket Brigade.”

Wrote a Popular Pamphlet on Choosing a Mistress: Franklin authored a satirical (and often censored) pamphlet in 1745 titled “Advice to a Friend on Choosing a Mistress,” which included the provocative advice “in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones.”.

D'Aulaire, Edgar Parin, 1898-1986, and D'Aulaire, Ingri, 1904-1980 - Artist. D'Aulaire - Final Art for "Benjamin Franklin". ca. 1949. Illustrations. Free Library of Philadelphia: Philadelphia, PA. https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/51969.

Invented “Electric Party Games”: After his famous work with electricity, Franklin entertained guests with electric parlor tricks. One such game was to pass an electric shock through a line of people holding hands, providing a thrill and a laugh—an unusual precursor to today’s party games.

Tenderized Turkey by Electrocution and Electrocuted Himself: In several experiments Franklin electrocuted turkeys usind two Leyden jars and found that made the meat “uncommonly tender.” But these experiments had their hazards. In one, Franklin electrocuted himself. His friend Peter Collinson recounted Franklin’s experience. “It was some minutes before he could recollect his thoughts so as to know what was the matter . . .  His arms and the back of the neck felt somewhat numbed the remainder of the evening, and his breast was sore for a week after, as if it has been bruised.”

Hosted an Electrical Picnic on the Schuylkill: In one letter to the Royal Academy in 1749 Franklin described a picnic on the banks of the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia: “a turkey is to be killed for our dinners by the electrical shock, and roasted by the electrical jack, before a fire kindled by the electrified bottle, when the healths of all the famous electricians in England, France and Germany, are to be drank in electrified bumpers, under the discharge of guns from the electrical battery.”

A fanciful recreation of Franklin’s electrical picnic courtesy of Dall-e with prompts from Rich Kelley

Invented a Flexible Urinary Catheter: In 1752, Franklin invented a flexible urinary catheter for his brother John, who suffered from bladder stones. His catheter was more comfortable than the rigid devices used at the time.

Flexible catheter (1752) Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania

Organized a Militia and Built Stockades: In 1756, Colonel Franklin organized a militia and built a line of stockades to defend Pennsylvania’s western frontier. To get the 500 men under his command to attend worship services, he had the military chaplain dole out the daily allotment of rum right after services. “Never were prayers more generally and punctually attended.”

Franklin with son William directing the building of the stockade at Fort Allen (1911) by Charles Mills Library of Congress / Public Domain

Whale oil street lamp (American), Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia, Historical Society of Pennsylvania Collection, Photo Credit: Peter Harholdt

Improved Street Lighting Designs: Colonists first used the glass globes common in London for streetlights. They tended to darken with soot as the oil inside burned and required near daily cleaning. Franklin’s improved design, introduced around 1757, used a four-sided glass globe to prevent the wind from blowing out the flame, and included a long funnel above to draw up the smoke, and crevices admitting air below, to facilitate the ascent of smoke. His design also gave off more light.

Took Daily Air Baths: Franklin had a unique health regimen that included “air baths,” which involved sitting naked in front of an open window for 30 minutes to an hour. Franklin believed in “dry bathing,” which involved rubbing himself down with a dry towel to exfoliate and invigorate his skin. He claimed it kept him in good health.

Invented the Glass Armonica: In 1761, Franklin invented a musical instrument called the glass armonica, which used spinning glass bowls to produce sounds. Mozart, Beethoven, Donizetti, and Saint-Saens wrote music for it. In the video excerpt from the Ken Burns documentary about Franklin, historian Ellen Conn explains what inspired Franklin’s invention.

Promoted Farting: In a jocular letter to the Royal Academy in 1781, Franklin proposed that it engage in a study of farts “To discover some Drug wholesome & not disagreable, to be mix’d with our common Food, or Sauces, that shall render the natural Discharges of Wind from our Bodies, not only inoffensive, but agreable as Perfumes.”

Used the Scientific Method to Prove Anton Mesmer a Fraud: In 1784 while Franklin was ambassador to France, King Louis XVI charged him to lead a commission to investigate the claims of Franz Friedrich Anton Mesmer that he was able to cure innumerable ailments by rearranging a person’s “animal magnetism.” Franklin’s commission, including the chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, the astronomer Jean-Sylvain Bally, and doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, the inventor of the guillotine, invented science’s first blind test to prove Mesmer’s techniques a fraud. (For more details, see “Mesmerising Science: The Franklin Commission and the Modern Clinical Trial.”)

Magnetism Unveiled, anonymous engraving showing Benjamin Franklin brandishing his commission’s exposé of animal magnetism, while a half-animal Mesmer flees on a witch’s broom, in his hand a bag of money From Bibliotheque nationale de France

Historians Joyce E. Chaplin, Nicole Eustace, and Evelynn Hammonds discuss Benjamin and William Franklin, eighteenth-century science, the American experiment, and FRANKLINLAND on November 2 at EST

From left, Joyce E. Chaplin, Nicole Eustace, Evelynn M. Hammonds

On Saturday, November 2, following the 2:00 PM matinee performance of FRANKLINLAND, the raucous new comedy by Lloyd Suh, everyone is encouraged to stay for a talkback discussion with historians Joyce E. Chaplin, Nicole Eustace, and Evelynn Hammonds about the cultural, historical, and scientific background of the play.

FRANKLINLAND is the story of growing up as the only son of Benjamin Franklin: the greatest scientific mind in the world, inventor of the lightning rod and the urinary catheter and the glass harmonica and bifocal glasses and, oh yeah, in his spare time the United States of America.

The audience will have the opportunity to ask questions and join the discussion.

FRANKLINLAND, written by Lloyd Suh and directed by Chika Ike, is the Fall 2024 mainstage production of the EST/Sloan Project, EST’s partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop new plays “exploring the world of science and technology,” an initiative now in its twenty-fifth year. 

About the Panelists

Dr. Joyce E. Chaplin

Joyce E. Chaplin is the James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History at Harvard University, where she is affiliated with the departments of History and History of Science, and with the Graduate School of Design. A former Fulbright Scholar, she has taught at six universities on two continents, an island, and a peninsula, and in a maritime studies program on the Atlantic Ocean. A prize-winning author, her work has been translated into French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Estonian. Her recent works include The First Scientific American: Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius, Round about the Earth: Circumnavigation from Magellan to Orbit, and (as editor) Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography: A Norton Critical Edition. Her new book, The Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution, was supported by a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship and is forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Her reviews and essays have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, the London Review of Books, and the New York Times. A long time ago, she used to be a stage manager.

Dr. Evelynn M. Hammonds

Evelynn M. Hammonds is the Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science, Professor of African and African American Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University.  Her research focuses on the history of scientific, medical and socio-political concepts of race, gender and sexuality in the histories of medicine, science and public health in the United States; black feminist and queer theory and the history of disease and race. She is the author of Childhood's Deadly Scourge: The Campaign to Control Diphtheria in New York City, 1880-1930 (1999), and, with Rebecca Herzig, The Nature of Difference: Sciences of Race in the United States from Jefferson to Genomics (2008).

About the Moderator

Dr. Nicole Eustace

Nicole Eustace is Julius Silver Family Professor of History at New York University, where she has leadership roles in both the history of women and gender program and the Atlantic history workshop. A historian of the early modern Atlantic and the early United States, she specializes in the history of emotion. She is the author of Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America, which won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for History and was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Her other books include 1812: War and the Passions of Patriotism (2012), Passion Is the Gale: Emotion, Power, and the Coming of the American Revolution (2008), and Warning for America: Cultural Contests in the Era of 1812 (2017), co-edited with Fredrika J. Teute.

FRANKLINLAND began previews on October 9 and runs through November 3 at EST. You can purchase tickets here.

Thandiwe Mawungwa on contemporary Zimbabwe, culture clashes, playwriting, and HOW POWER FLOWS

Thandiwe Mawungwa

How do you introduce new technology to a village community where nothing can be done unless you consult with and get the approval of the village ancestors? In HOW POWER FLOWS, the compelling new play by Thandiwe Mawungwa, the idealistic civil engineers confront exactly this problem as they try to bring running water to a remote village in Zimbabwe.  

HOW POWER FLOWS will have its first public reading at 3:00 PM on October 24 at the Ensemble Studio Theater as part of the Fall 2024 EST/Sloan First Light Festival. The reading is free and reservations are encouraged.

Thandiwe kindly found time this week to answer all our questions about her new play.

(Interview by Rich Kelley)

How did HOW POWER FLOWS come to be?

My husband and I travel a lot to remote villages filming documentaries for humanitarian organizations. During our travels, I noticed there was one problem that was consistent among the villages – the clash between development and African traditional religion. When I saw the call for plays for the EST/Sloan Project, I thought that would be the perfect platform to write and develop the play that had been circling in my head for many years. The deadline also added the much-needed discipline to write and finish it!

Tell us about your journey from Zimbabwe to the U.S.

My journey from Zimbabwe to the U.S has been an adventurous one and began in 2019 when my play 33 Cents was chosen to be part of the Ojai Playwrights Festival in California. The following year, I returned to the United States for a film festival, which never happened because of COVID and we ended up being stuck in the U.S. for one and a half years. It was actually during this period that I applied for the EST/Sloan grant. Now, four years later, I am here again – with two films having been screened at the 33 and Me Film Festival in Pennsylvania as well HOW POWER FLOWS seeing its “First Light” at EST.

Have you ever visited or lived in villages in Zimbabwe like the one in the play? How did that inform the play?

Growing up we used to go to the village during school holidays and even as a young child, I could feel the tension between science and African traditional religion. My filming work takes me to many villages. These experiences played a major role in how I created my characters and their reactions.

Parts of the story are based on my own experiences in various villages. For example, when Henrietta is fined by the Chief for wearing trousers, that actually happened to me! However, in my case, I was wearing a skirt on top of the trousers but they saw the trousers around my ankles so I got into trouble! 

Why this play? Why now?

I have seen many talented, enthusiastic and hardworking young people leaving Zimbabwe because they were blocked from achieving their goals. The brain drain is real. I think it is time to address how corruption and our spiritual beliefs have played a major role in that. We need to find a way to respect our cultures and customs but not at the cost of development.

What do you want the audience to take away from HOW POWER FLOWS?

I want the audience to not only get an insight into some of the challenges we face in Zimbabwe, but for them to also understand that there are many nuances and complexities involved in trying to help a community. It’s not just about bringing development but about respecting and understanding the people you want to help.

Is the play set in contemporary Zimbabwe? Is the current political climate there as repressive – with frequent arbitrary arrests – as depicted in the play?

Yes, the play is set in contemporary Zimbabwe. Arrests happen there but are not arbitrary. You only get arrested if the government sees you as a threat – which is sometimes synonymous with trying to improve people’s standard of living. I, however, feel very strongly the need to mention that Zimbabwe is a very safe and peaceful country despite the political challenges we sometimes face. Everyone should definitely come and visit one day!

Are there still spiritual mediums in villages in Zimbabwe today who have as much influence over communal decision making as the medium depicted in the play?

Oh yes, definitely!

When did you know you were a playwright?

This may sound like a cliche but I started writing stories as soon as I could hold a pen. I became a playwright when I watched a terrible play in university and decided to write another play on the same subject but even better. I called that play A Banquet of Sorts and it played to three full houses!

What playwrights have influenced you the most?

Lyn Nottage, August Wilson and Lorraine Hansberry. The Zimbabwean playwright who influenced me the most was Aaron Chiundura Moyo. We studied his books in school. Another notable writer who has influenced me is Ngugi Wa Thiong'o.

You may be best known for producing the 2017 Zimbabwe thriller Mind Games, which has won several awards including Best Zimbabwean Film at the Zimbabwe International Film Festival in 2017. That movie has quite a different vibe from HOW POWER FLOWS and your other plays which all seem to have a social justice component. Do you see theater as inherently better at accomplishing some things than movies? Any plans to write more thrillers?

Mind Games also has a social justice component just packaged differently from HOW POWER FLOWS. Theater is definitely better at accomplishing certain things than movies. The creativity in theater is endless while creativity in movies is usually limited by the budget. For example, in theater you can put a chair on stage and say this is now an airplane, but in movies you have to show the plane.

What's next for Thandiwe Mawungwa?

More writing! My husband and I are currently co-writing a feature film called Shanduko. I am also in the process of writing my next full-length play which is about social justice – but now focusing on the hypocrisy I see in the world. Interesting times!

HOW POWER FLOWS is one of three readings of new plays in development as part of the EST/Sloan Project in the Fall 2024 First Light Festival, which runs from October 24 through December 12. The festival is made possible through the alliance between the Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.   

Historians Christopher L. Brown, Philip Dray, and Rosalind Remer gather at EST on October 26 to discuss Ben Franklin, eighteenth-century science, the American experiment, and FRANKLINLAND

From left, Christopher L. Brown, Philip Dray, and Rosalind Remer

On Saturday, October 26, following the 2:00 PM matinee performance of FRANKLINLAND, the hilarious new comedy by Lloyd Suh, everyone is encouraged to stay for a talkback discussion with historians Christopher L. Brown, Philip Dray, and Rosalind Remer about the cultural, historical, and scientific background of the play.

FRANKLINLAND is the story of growing up as the only son of Benjamin Franklin: the greatest scientific mind in the world, inventor of the lightning rod and the urinary catheter and the glass harmonica and bifocal glasses and, oh yeah, in his spare time the United States of America.

The audience will have the opportunity to ask questions and join the discussion.

FRANKLINLAND, written by Lloyd Suh and directed by Chika Ike, is the Fall 2024 mainstage production of the EST/Sloan Project, EST’s partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop new plays “exploring the world of science and technology,” an initiative now in its twenty-fifth year. 

About the Panelists

Christopher L. Brown

Christopher L. Brown is professor of history at Columbia University. He is a historian of Britain and the British empire, principally in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with special emphasis on the comparative history of slavery and abolition, and with secondary interests in the Atlantic Slave Trade and the Age of Revolutions.  His current research centers on the history of European experience on the African coast at the height of the Atlantic slave trade, and continues early commitments to the rise and fall of slavery in the British Empire.  His published work has received prizes in four distinct fields of study – American History, British History, Atlantic History, and the history of Slavery, Abolition, and Resistance. Completed projects include Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism (University of North Carolina Press) and, with Philip D. Morgan, Arming Slaves: Classical Times to the Modern Age (Yale University Press).  He has written as well for The Nation, The New York Times, and the London Review of Books, among other outlets.  

Philip Dray

Philip Dray is the author of several books about the cultural and political history of the United States, including Stealing God’s Thunder: Benjamin Franklin’s Lightning Rod and the Invention of America; Capitol Men: The Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen; and At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America. He also published There is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America and A Lynching at Port Jervis: Race and Redemption in the Gilded Age. He has received the Southern Critics Book Circle Award for Non-Fiction, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Prize, and was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist.  He teaches in the Journalism + Design Department at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School, and lives in Brooklyn. 

About the Moderator

Rosalind Remer

Rosalind Remer was Executive Director of the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary, a federal commission to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Franklin’s birth. She is Senior Vice Provost at Drexel University for Collections and Exhibitions, and the founding Executive Director of the Lenfest Center for Cultural Partnerships at Drexel.  Remer is Chair of the Board of Managers of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, the nonprofit owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer, and serves as a member of Board of Advisors for the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy, vice chair of the American Antiquarian Society’s Council, and a member of the Independence Historical Trust board of directors.

 FRANKLINLAND began previews on October 9 and runs through November 3 at EST. You can purchase tickets here.

FRANKLINLAND: The History and Science Behind the Play

This 2024/2025 season marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the EST/Sloan Project, the joint initiative between the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Ensemble Studio Theatre “designed to stimulate artists to create credible and compelling work exploring the worlds of science and technology and to challenge the existing stereotypes of scientists and engineers in the popular imagination.” In that spirit, we offer this essay on the historical and scientific context of  FRANKLINLAND the Fall 2024 Mainstage Production of the EST/Sloan Project. FRANKLINLAND, written by Lloyd Suh and directed by Chika Ike, begins previews at EST on October 9 and runs through November 3. You can purchase tickets here.

“He Snatched Lightning from the Sky, and the Scepter from Tyrants”

Benjamin Franklin’s Embrace of Science and the Rights of Humankind

By Philip Dray, author of Stealing God’s Thunder: Benjamin Franklin’s Lightning Rod and the Invention of America

On one of his journeys to England, the ship on which Benjamin Franklin was sailing became lost in the fog for several hours before managing to land safely.  His relieved fellow passengers sought to take up a collection to build a shrine of thanksgiving but Franklin objected, insisting a lighthouse would be far more appropriate.

Throughout his life (1706-1790), Franklin’s pragmatism was brought to bear in many such situations.  Born in Boston, where he apprenticed for his older brother James’s newspaper, he moved to Philadelphia as a young man and made a name for himself as a printer, publisher and community steward.  He organized a young men’s civic leadership group, and lent his support to libraries, fire departments, philosophical societies, as well as the need for unity among the American colonies. Known for his wise and witty almanacs, he also pursued horticultural and scientific experiments.       

Franklin stove (c.1795)  Courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art  Rogers Fund / Creative Commons CC0 1.0

His curiosity was most piqued by natural systems – wind, magnetism, heat, electricity – forces that contained energy but no mass.  When he noticed that the warmth generated by an open fireplace tended to “scorch” those individuals seated close by but left others in the drafty cold, his answer, one of his first inventions, was a stove that stood away from the wall and with its multiple surface areas warmed an entire room, while its closeable doors meant its fire required less fuel. 

Franklin did not invent electricity – its mysteries had been noted since Antiquity -- however his tabletop inquiries enabled him to describe how it worked.  His letters on the subject were published by the Royal Society in London and led to his initial worldwide renown.  Most notable was his 1752 outdoor experiment with kite and key, in which he proved that the atmosphere becomes electrified at the approach of a thunderstorm.  Having established that thunder and lightning are natural phenomena, he proceeded to invent a means of protection, the lightning rod, a metal contraption that, affixed to the roof of a dwelling and grounded in the earth, conducts lightning’s powerful electrical charge away from inhabitants and property. 

The lightning rod which still tops the dome of the Maryland State House in Annapolis was the largest Franklin lightning rod (28 feet) ever built for a public building during Franklin’s lifetime. Photo courtesy of Acroterion / Creative Commons 4.0

Franklin’s simple rooftop device was a cultural turning point, toppling the long-held superstition that thunderbolts were weapons of divine anger and retribution to which humans could only cower in fear.  The image of Franklin, the humble American printer and publisher who “stole God’s thunder” and thus called into question the heavenly powers of earthly kings, would make him a much-admired scientific and political figure of the dawning revolutionary age.  “He Snatched Lightning from the Sky, and the Scepter from Tyrants,” it was said of Franklin’s twin fields of endeavor.                     

Any full account of Franklin’s science must cite the invention of which he was most proud: bifocals.  When on diplomatic assignment in France he often attended dinner parties where he needed to see clearly the lips and faces, and even the hand gestures, of those with whom he conversed, as his mastery of French was adequate at best.  At the same time, a lover of good food, he wanted to see what was on his plate.  Returning in frustration to his quarters after one such affair, where he’d had to continually shift between two different eyeglasses, he disassembled several pair and using adhesive brought the upper and lower lenses together to form a dual lens.  Now, by merely raising and lowering his gaze, he could keep an eye on his meal and at the same time know what his dinner companions, or adversaries, were saying.

Franklin characteristically never sought to patent any of his creations, considering the practical solutions he devised so inevitable they could not possibly “belong” to him or to any person.  Such generosity of spirit reflected his allegiance to what would become known as the Scientific Method, an idea that had emerged from the Newtonian 17th century, that the search for scientific knowledge is open-ended, and functions best as a process in which hypotheses give way to experimentation, leading to better hypotheses, improved theories and conclusions, in an ongoing quest for truth.       

Benjamin Franklin (1785) by Charles Willson Peale.  The only known portrait of Franklin wearing bifocals. In the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts / Public Domain.

His interest in bettering human affairs was thus inspired by his and the late 18th century’s belief in the powers of experimentation and reason.  The Declaration of Independence of 1776, the founding document of arguably the Enlightenment’s most ambitious invention, the United States of America, underscored that “the laws of nature, and of nature’s God” (an echo of Isaac Newton’s “laws of gravity”) provided a moral basis for the safeguarding of humanity’s right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and held that such rights are inherent to humankind, and not endowed by any monarch or divinity.  Where Thomas Jefferson, the document’s youthful author, referred to the principles of human equality as “sacred and undeniable,” Franklin suggested the words be changed to say that such truths are “self-evident,” the latter a phrase derived from Newtonian science. 

A nation governed by its people, however, was an exceedingly novel concept, and it was far from certain what form it would take or how long it could survive.  When the Constitutional Convention completed its work in September 1787 after four months of arduous deliberation, a Philadelphia acquaintance named Elizabeth Powell accosted Franklin as the delegates departed Independence Hall.  “Doctor,” she demanded, “what do we have, a monarchy or a republic?” 

“A republic,” Franklin famously replied, “if you can keep it.”  For in approving the Constitution he had worried that even the best-intentioned experiment in self-rule might fall prey to corruption; and in the final years of his life, regretful that slavery persisted in North America, aligned himself with a group of Quaker abolitionists vehemently opposed to the institution. 

Franklin was fascinated by what later scholars would call “population studies,” and liked to prognosticate on the future growth of the United States, with, he’d be pleased to know, a surprising degree of accuracy.  Doubtless he’d be gratified to see that the nation he helped found also became and continues to be a place known for research, innovation and the openness to new ideas.

About the Author: Philip Dray is the author of several books about the cultural and political history of the United States, including Stealing God’s Thunder: Benjamin Franklin’s Lightning Rod and the Invention of America; Capitol Men: The Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen; and At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America. He teaches in the Journalism + Design Department at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School and will be joining a panel discussion about FRANKLINLAND after the October 26 matinee performance.

Lloyd Suh on fathers and sons, Ben Franklin’s humor, the American experiment, and FRANKLINLAND

Lloyd Suh (Photo: Jackie Abbott https://www.jma-photography.com/)

Imagine what it must have been like to be William Franklin, only son of the greatest scientific mind of his time: to assist in his father’s experiments and try to understand their importance, to travel with him and do experiments aboard ship, to match wits daily with the creator of some of the most famous sayings in American culture. And then to rupture the sacred bond when the time came to choose sides in the great experiment of inventing America.

In his brisk comedy FRANKLINLAND, Pulitzer finalist Lloyd Suh has great fun putting center stage one of the most fractious father-son love-hate relationships in American history – at a time when the country itself was just being born. Lloyd tells more about the genesis of the play below.

The New York premiere of FRANKLINLAND, directed by Chika Ike, is the Fall 2024 EST/Sloan Project Mainstage Production. This year is the 25th anniversary of the partnership between EST and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Previews of FRANKLINLAND start Wednesday, October 9 at the Ensemble Studio Theatre and the show will run through November 3. Reserve your ticket here.

(Interview by Rich Kelley)

Where did the idea of writing a play about Ben and William Franklin come from?

Honestly, it came from EST and the Sloan Foundation. Graeme Gillis had asked me back in 2011 if I had any ideas for a play about science and technology. I had always been fascinated by Benjamin Franklin and had read a couple of biographies about him previously, but I probably wouldn’t have come to the idea of writing a play about him without that prompt from Graeme. But once he asked, I started thinking about an inventor who ultimately invents a nation. It started from that.

When did you know it was going to be a comedy? Was Ben Franklin really as funny as he is in the play?

I knew immediately it wanted to be a comedy, because yes, Benjamin Franklin was very, very funny – albeit in a different way than I’ve depicted him here (what was funny then isn’t necessarily what’s funny now). But humor was a key part of what he valued about life.

What kind of research did you do to prepare to write FRANKLINLAND?

Since the reading I had already done about Benjamin Franklin was casual reading, I went back to various sources, including Ben’s own writing – basically re-reading key sections with more of a researcher’s eye. I gave myself permission pretty early on to deviate in certain ways from the historical record, but I wanted everything to be rooted in the truth – so especially in the few key instances when I’ve invented an idea or encounter, I wanted to make sure there was historical grounding.

Is the term “Franklinland” something you discovered in your research or is it your invention?

That’s one of the things I invented, but it comes from something very real. Ben and William had done a great deal of land speculation in their time together, and in his will Ben left his son almost nothing but for the lands he owned in Nova Scotia. There’s no doubt this conveyed a particular metaphor at the time, as the significance of the land was elusive. But it made me curious about potential complexities – perhaps hidden complexities – in what that land could have represented. Ultimately, the land has a different fate in the play than it did in reality, but trying to load it with as much meaning as possible was a fun and valuable exercise in giving context to that relationship.

There is so much going on in FRANKLINLAND: the tempestuous father-son relationship, the confusion of a young nation in rebellion, Ben’s endless inventiveness.  Which aspect attracted you the most?

Well, it started with the inventions, which led to the notion of America itself as a grand scientific experiment. But the father-son relationship, especially as it related to the war in pursuit of that American experiment, was the most essential element in making it an actual play. The other stuff was the impetus – I guess you could say the bones of the play – but the family conflict was the heart.

In your recent conversation on the “EST Re:Members” podcast, you mentioned that you felt that FRANKLINLAND resonates differently now than it did in 2014, when you first wrote it. What in the play resonates differently now?

Okay, this is very nerdy, but if we apply the scientific method to the American experiment, we can just imagine how differently we might interpret the data coming back during the Obama years vs. the data we’re receiving in this very contentious election season, or even just generally in the aftermath of the Trump administration and the ongoing national conversation around our monuments, and what they mean as we reckon with America's racist history. These are new data points, and I suspect we’ll get even more, every day over the coming weeks as the election ramps up. I’m fascinated to see how the news of the day in the run up to Election Day might make its way into the theater during the run.

You are perhaps best known now for your history plays about Asian immigrants coming to America: The Chinese Lady, The Heart Sellers, and The Far Country, for which you were a Pulitzer finalist. How does FRANKLINLAND relate to those plays?

Each of those plays is so distinct, not just in terms of story but also in terms of form, so I never know how to define them collectively. But there was about a 10-year stretch when pretty much everything I did was part of an involuntary impulse to investigate particular moments in history. Many of these plays were full-length plays centered around Asian American history, like The Heart Sellers and Charles Francis Chan, along with the ones you mentioned, but some were not: I would also count Disney & Fujikawa, a shorter play that was another EST commission, as part of that exploration, as well as Bina’s Six Apples, which is not set in the US but in Korea. So I guess you could classify these in many different ways, and sometimes by necessity or convenience I will, but ultimately I think they are all connected. Franklinland was chronologically the first one – both in terms of setting, but also in terms of when I wrote it.

What’s next for Lloyd Suh?

I think I’ve satisfied enough of whatever that involuntary impulse was – that impulse around history. I’m trying not to overthink this, but I’m following a different impulse now, which is that lately I’ve been writing about the future.

Meghan Brown on sibling rivalry, quantum physics, hard-to-shake stories, and BIGFOOT

Meghan Brown

When do harmless ideas become dangerous? How do members of the same family develop radically different belief systems? How enduring are family bonds? Meghan Brown explores these questions and more in BIGFOOT, her edgy family comedy in which disgraced physicist Holly tries to persuade her Bigfoot conspiracy theorist sister Alyssa to return from the wilds of Oregon for a family Thanksgiving before their mother dies. A darkly funny high-stakes suspense play about sibling rivalry and the power of a good story.

BIGFOOT had its first public reading on June 17 at the Ensemble Studio Theater as part of the 2024 EST/Sloan First Light Festival.

Taking time out from her many new projects, Meghan kindly talked with us about her new play.

(Interview by Rich Kelley)

What inspired you to write BIGFOOT?

In light of the increasing visibility of anti-science thinking during the COVID-19 pandemic, I wanted to explore the ways in which seemingly harmless ideas (like believing in Bigfoot) become dangerous. 

I was also really interested in exploring a family dynamic where two sisters had diametrically opposed views on science, and imagining a set of circumstances where they were able to connect with each other in a way that made change possible. 

The two sisters in the play have a lot of issues with each other and have developed dramatically different worldviews: one is a physicist; the other is extremely skeptical of science. Do you think family dynamics can determine a person’s worldview?

I think that human beings are at the mercy of stories, and that many of the most foundational, hard-to-shake stories about identity often crystallize within families. We all see the world through a very particular lens — and that filter is shaped significantly (though not necessarily permanently!) by childhood experiences and dynamics. 

Frame 352 of the 1967 Patterson–Gimlin film, alleged by the filmmakers to depict a female Bigfoot.

Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin / Public Domain

Holly, the physicist in the play, talks about some of the more puzzling theories in physics: quantum superposition, quantum entanglement, and dark matter. Is the play contending that some of the tenets in physics require a belief system similar to what a conspiracy theorist buys into?

Definitely not! There’s a big difference between believing in Bigfoot and believing in quantum physics — but one of my main interests in telling this story was trying to really highlight what that difference actually is. In BIGFOOT, Alyssa points out that Bigfoot is just a “weird animal,” not an “all-knowing bilocating electron or whatever” — I wanted to explore the idea that depending on your background, believing in something like Bigfoot might feel much more comfortable than “believing” in a scientific paradox you haven’t been given the opportunity to truly understand. 

What would you like audiences to take away from seeing BIGFOOT?

That you can change your story. You can change your mind. You can learn new things and gather new evidence and release outdated beliefs and come to new, more evolved conclusions. And you can do this without being “incapacitated by shame.” It’s OK to have been wrong!

Have you had any personal relationship to physics?

I’m married to a quantum physicist, which has resulted in a much more personal relationship to physics than I ever would have predicted. Physics is mysterious and fascinating, and it has been a real privilege to get some small level of insight into how the world works on an atomic level. 

Plays about sisters are always so rich with history and feeling. What are your favorite plays about sisters?

The first two that come to mind are Jiehae Park’s Peerless and Jen Silverman’s The Moors. (Both happen to have productions in July 2024!)

What’s next for Meghan Brown?

I’m currently working on a physics-related spy romcom screenplay called Superposition, and was one of the co-writers on a comedy thriller film for Buzzfeed/Lionsgate called F*** Marry Kill that shot last summer and will be released soon. In terms of theater, I’m currently collaborating on a few new musical projects and continuing work on my astronaut murder mystery play A Seam (developed at the Geffen Playhouse Writers Room) and the Much Ado About Nothing riff/sex tragicomedy What Happened While Hero Was Dead (developed at Moving Arts’ MADlab, the Great Plains Theater Conference, and the Ashland New Plays Festival). I’ve also got a production of my play The Pliant Girls opening in DC this fall! 

BIGFOOT was one of six readings of new plays in development as part of the EST/Sloan Project in the 2024 First Light Festival, which ran from April 25 through June 17. The festival is made possible through the alliance between the Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.   

Karina Billini on BBLs, body dysmorphia, social influencers, and APPLE BOTTOM

Karina Billini

When beauty standards change, who benefits and who is harmed? Who has the most influence over how we feel about our bodies? Celebrities? Social influencers? Our friends and loved ones? And who can explain the 650% surge in Brazilian Butt Lift surgery in the past ten years? In her riveting new play, APPLE BOTTOM, Karina Billini takes us inside a Miami salon that treats women recovering from BBLs. What unfolds is an intimate examination of female-to-female caregiving, body dysmorphia, and unsettling transformations cosmetic and otherwise. 

APPLE BOTTOM will have its first public reading this Thursday, June 13 at 3:00 PM at the Ensemble Studio Theater as part of the 2024 EST/Sloan First Light Festival. The reading is free and reservations are encouraged.

Between rehearsals and rewrites, Karina somehow found time to share her thoughts about the play.

(Interview by Rich Kelley)

Tell us how APPLE BOTTOM came to be?

It was Fall 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, and I had just finished writing a mini one-act Sloan play about the practice of holistic medicine in Dominican botanicas for EST as a Youngblood member (“She Comes from the Dirt”). I really appreciated how it just broadened my artistic lens and voice. So, I wanted to go after the large Sloan commission. I remember watching Linsay on a panel giving advice on how to pitch a successful Sloan play. She said to root the science in your truth. So what was my truth? At the time, Kim Kardashian and her sisters were really blowing up in popularity for their new large buttocks and wide hips that POC women in my community and family had been ostracized their whole lives for.

Kim Kardashian in 2014 Photo: Eva Rinaldi CCA 2.0

While the Kardashians were being celebrated for their new shapely figures, curvaceous women of color continued to be bullied. Why? Two things: 1) society’s long-standing racist beauty ideals where black/brown bodies have been marked as “excessive” against a white/middle-class construct and 2) the Kardashians had learned to “whiten” the curvy POC body frame by perfecting the “slim thick” frame: keep the wide hips and large buttocks of POC women, but still be thin…and white. I was infuriated at how the Kardashians were commodifying the brown/black femme body.

Meanwhile, I was seeing on the news how brown and black women were dying at an alarming rate from getting a BBL. At the time, brown and black women were taking advantage of the cheap pandemic flights and remote work to get plastic surgery, specifically BBLs, done. Most of these POC women already had natural curvy figures, but were criticized for “missing the ‘slim’ in ‘slim thick’.” It was all just too casual for me!  Why wasn’t anyone engaging with the fact that we had a serious epidemic on our hands—that POC women were dying under the knife for a procedure that had the highest death rate of any cosmetic surgery?

Why this play? Why now?

Because black and brown women continue to fall victim to a cosmetic procedure that is deeply flawed, unmonitored, and dangerous. Here are some stats from August 2023. The numbers have gone up from when I started my research in May 2022:

1.      +1M Brazilian Butt Lifts was done in this year alone (increased by 650% in past 10 years).

2.     Up to 455 people died from BBL surgery in 2023.

3.     1 in 250 women in the US have had a BBL.

4.    11% of all cosmetic procedures are Brazilian Butt Lifts.

5.     1 in every 2,300 BBLs result in the death of the patient due to complication related to the surgery.

6.    BBLs are 30 times more dangerous than breast augmentations.

7.     In the US, $2.8B worth of revenue is generated from BBL surgeries each year.

What would you like audiences to take away from seeing APPLE BOTTOM?

I am not trying to make anyone pro- or anti-BBL. A person has every right to alter their body the way their spirit feels fit. But I do want to advocate for POC women to make that life choice based solely on their wishes and not on what is being dictated by society. If you are a woman of color struggling with body dysmorphia, I hope you feel seen. I hope we can begin a conversation exploring how systemic racism prevents black and brown women from having these body augmentations done safely (whether the difficulty is with cost, accessibility to effective pre/post care, research, etc). I want to call for reform, research, and remedy on this unethical medical failure that has been bestowed on brown and black women.

What kind of research did you do to write the play?

Buttocks augmentation before and after Photo: Otto Placik CCA 3.0

First and foremost, I want to thank Nicky Maggio, a director and dramaturg friend, who joined me in finding and sorting through BBL research during my time as a writer-in-residence at the 2022 New Harmony Project Conference.

I combed YouTube and the internet for about every vlog of recent BBL patients and watched all of them! Watching these women document their BBL journeys and post-care really allowed me to build character motivation, psychology, speech patterns post-op, etc. Through their vlogs, I was able to get a full idea of what it is to be in a recovery house like Apple Bottom Spa from the lymphatic massages to their everyday interactions with the attendants.  (I also read plenty of negative reviews from dissatisfied patients at recovery houses based in Miami!) I watched recordings of live BBL surgeries. I listened to podcasts from plastic surgeons promoting or denouncing BBLs. I read epic manifestos dissecting the BBL as a cultural phenomenon and the societal and structural factors that play into it being a health crisis.

Did you encounter any surprises as you did your research?

A surgeon cannot see where the fat is landing inside your buttocks, which is why this surgery is so dangerous. Without visibility, a surgeon can accidentally insert the fat into a vein which can eventually lead to an embolism. That detail is always so shocking for me.

The play includes several scenes in which the characters disrobe before and after their operations. How do you imagine this happening on stage? Won’t you need to cast the play by body type?

This is a conversation I continue to have with the current artistic homes I’m developing APPE BOTTOM in. I have plans this summer to speak with intimacy coordinators and casting directors on how to navigate these factors in a mindful fashion. But it is important to me to show the truth of this procedure and its post care—and to show the body in its various stages during that time—however that may translate theatrically.

How important is it to the play that four of the five characters share a Caribbean background? 

As a Dominican-American/Caribbean woman and playwright, very. We need more Caribbean characters on stage! And misbehaving! 

The interactions among the five characters are so intense, flavorful and nuanced. Have you ever lived or worked with women like this? 

APPLE BOTTOM is a love letter to all the vivacious women in my life. I’ve been fortunate to be raised, mentored, befriended, and loved by brilliant, resilient, fiery, razor-tongued women. When I went to New Harmony Project to develop and outline APPLE BOTTOM, I brought photos of the women in my life—photos taken at dinner parties, office gatherings or us lounging at the pool. And I turned to my dramaturg, Nicky, and said, “I want Apple Bottom Spa to have the same fervent energy.” 

I grew up in a matriarchal Dominican family; the women run the show. All the women in my family are storytellers and every time we all get in a room together, you have to fight to get a word in. Everyone has an opinion about something; everyone is desperate to be heard. Everyone is half-listening because they’ve already done a deep analysis of what you just said and are planning a rebuttal. If you wanted to be heard, your voice and stories better be colorful and loud.

In the professional world, I have been really fortunate to be led and mentored by professional women of color who had a duality to them. They knew how to balance book and street smarts. And they were freakin’ hilarious; never shied away from a dirty joke. Every word was rooted in survival and humor. I wanted the Apple Bottom ladies to emulate that.

I’d like to shout out the fiery women in my life who have molded me: my sisters, my mother, my aunts, Renee, the HCE crew, all my spicy Italian playwriting teachers who have changed my life. A special thanks to the powerhouse women who continue to support and help develop this play: Linsay Firman, the APPLE BOTTOM cast, the folks at FLT, EWG, and La Jolla. Gracias. I am humbled by your womanhood.

Caro, the trans woman going through more than one kind of transition, seems to be the moral center of the play. What went into deciding to give this role to that character? 

Caro came to me first and very vividly. I knew how she looked right away, her strength, even her name. Caro, in Spanish, means “fancy,” “expensive,” “of quality”—and that’s who she is—a quality human being. She will give up her life to save yours and I think that’s utterly beautiful. I knew I needed a moral center and medical expert in the play, but she had to be someone who wasn’t medically trained in a professional setting. I really shaped Caro around the women in my life who abandoned their medical training because life happened—so they pivoted their knowledge to become a home attendant or homemaker. My mother, for example, went to medical school, but left the profession because she was a poet at heart. But she’s extremely knowledgeable in both traditional and holistic medicine, and that has served her in childrearing and taking care of my grandparents. I shaped Caro around my mother—someone who was scrappy, brilliant, a quick-thinker, resilient, no nonsense but her heart on her sleeve.

Kimberly Smedley

I also shaped Caro’s image around Trans figures such as Kimberly Smedley, who went to great extents to make her illegal silicon injection business (butt augmentation included) as safe as possible for her LGBTQA community—by even studying under prominent plastic surgeons. Like Smedley, Caro has also trained with plastic surgeons to better equip her (now shuttered) injection business—and deploying these safety practices with the Apple Bottom Spa clients..The popularization of injectable silicone can be attributed to the Trans community as a means to not only affirm gender needs, but to help with physical safety. Physical safety. I just felt that was a reality that needed to be reflected and honored in APPLE BOTTOM.

What’s next for Karina Billini?

In the fall, I begin my final year at The Juilliard School and the Public’s Emerging Writers Group as a playwriting fellow—which is very very very bittersweet. I will be spending this summer doing a massive rewrite on APPLE BOTTOM while brainstorming the next three plays I’m required to write for Juilliard!

APPLE BOTTOM is one of six readings of new plays in development as part of the EST/Sloan Project in this year’s First Light Festival, which runs until June 17. All readings are free, but reservations are encouraged. The festival is made possible through the alliance between The Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.   

Jacob Marx Rice on the mental health of teenagers, physics study groups, writing science plays, and BINDING ENERGY

Jacob Marx Rice

When you’re seventeen, everything is charged with intensity. Imagine the forces swirling around four science nerds as they study for their AP Physics Exam. Love, sex, money, mental health and the hurricane of being seventeen whirl through BINDING ENERGY, the brilliant new dark comedy by Jacob Marx Rice.

BINDING ENERGY had its first public reading on April 25 at the Ensemble Studio Theater as part of the 2024 EST/Sloan First Light Festival.

Jacob recently shared his thoughts about how the play came to be.

(Interview by Rich Kelley)

Takes us back to the origin of BINDING ENERGY. What inspired you to write it?

This wonderful organization called Fresh Ground Pepper is an incubator of new plays and they have a summer writing retreat they run every year. I had taken a break from writing plays due to some personal stuff and was trying to figure out my way back in, but I was completely at a loss, so I applied to the retreat. I had zero idea what I was going to write, but they took pity on me and invited me to come figure it out in the woods. I spent the mornings chopping wood, the afternoons interviewing the college students who were apprentices at the retreat about their high school experience, and the nights writing snippets of dialogue until a play began to form.

Why this play? Why now?

I think that we are in an incredibly delicate and important moment for teenagers. Mental illness among current teenagers has skyrocketed, with anxiety and depression reaching truly terrifying levels and rates of teen suicide nearly doubling. If we don’t start listening to these teenagers and finding a way to make the world a better place for them, it’s going to get a lot worse. This play provides a lens into that landscape, reminding people of their own experience of high school while pushing them to better understand the specific challenges facing teens today.

All of the characters in BINDING ENERGY are science nerds preparing for an advanced placement physics exam. No teachers. No parents. What appealed to you about focusing on the dynamics of students trying to learn together?

Being a teenager is such an isolating experience. Even when parents and teachers are nearby, it is so hard for them to actually relate that it can feel like you are alone. I had wonderful, caring parents and deeply committed teachers, but I still felt like I had to figure everything out myself. I wanted the world of the play to reflect that feeling.

Taken at the reading of BINDING ENERGY at EST on April 25. From left, Linsay Firman, Program Director of EST/Sloan Project; actor and friend of EST Seth Clayton; Sam Heldt, who read the part of Will in the play; Katie Palmer, Co-Artistic Director of Theater in Asylum; and playwright Jacob Marx Rice.

Were you ever in a study group like the one in your play? Were the interactions in the group as dramatic as in your play?

I was in a study group almost exactly like the one in the play, though it was for chemistry rather than physics. And, unfortunately, a surprising number of the most dramatic parts of the play are based on real experiences. And the ones that aren’t, are based on the experiences of teenagers I interviewed throughout the process. Just about every single story in this play is from someone’s real experience even (or perhaps especially) the stuff that is most horrifying.

You have a degree in astrophysics and you’ve taught high school physics. How did you decide how much science to include in the play?

The hardest thing about writing a play with science in it is not letting the science completely take over. Science is so full of cool ideas and fun facts, especially in physics, and some of the early drafts had these enormous diversions into awesome but irrelevant stuff I wanted people to know more about. In the end, I tried to apply a strict rule: if it doesn’t support the characters and the themes, it doesn’t get to go into the play. It was brutal paring it down, but the end result is that every physics moment either pushes the characters forward in the plot or reveals something true about who they are.

What do you want the audience to take away from BINDING ENERGY?

That it is so damn hard to be a teenager. But also that growth, and grace, are possible.

The Willamette Meteorite at the Museum of Natural History Photo: Mike Peel CC-BY-SA-4.0.

One of the most memorable passages in your play is Will’s description of his encounter with the Willamette meteorite. It’s such a beautiful set piece. When did that passage originate?

I’m pretty sure that monologue was the last thing I wrote. I wanted to give the audience a peak into Will’s head when he’s not consumed by his desires and his mental illness. I wanted them to see the little boy, deeply flawed but also deeply hopeful, at the center of this person who causes so much harm. This play is attempting to examine the ways people hurt each other. The goal is never to justify or dismiss it, but to understand where it comes from and to see the humanity in everyone. That’s not an easy feat, but I believe it’s a vital one. 

Would you like to comment on how the behavior of atomic particles is similar to the behavior of teenagers?

About halfway through the play, one of the characters points out that “physics is all just things pulling each other closer or pushing away.” That’s true of physics and it’s even more true of teenagers. In this play, each of the characters is based on a specific subatomic particle and that shapes their interactions with each other. But on a more fundamental level, I think being a teenager (or being a person) is really about trying to navigate the constant push and pull of other people in your life. Those forces can bring you together, or they can rip you apart, but we are all subject to the same constant struggle. 

You’ve developed plays with several theater companies. How is the EST/Sloan development process different?

This play was incredibly hard to write and took much longer than I expected. I was blown away by how much EST supported me throughout, always there to talk through the dramaturgy but never rushing my process as I worked to figure things out. They were also so open to exploration. To the extent that there is a “standard” Sloan play, my play definitely doesn’t fit the mold. There are no actual scientists in the play! But they were totally open to going on this journey with me, while also providing clear guiderails to make sure that the play kept science at the center. It was such an open process, and the people were so kind throughout. It really was a pleasure to be a part of.

What’s next for Jacob Marx Rice?

Deadline just announced a film I wrote (about a magician who gets pulled into the horrific maw of WW2 and has to use his wits, and his magic tricks, to survive the unsurvivable) that is set to shoot in 2025. And I’ve been in talks with a few theaters around the country about my play A Brief List of Everyone Who Died, which premiered at the Finborough in London last year and was nominated for four off West End Awards. I’m really hoping to be able to bring it stateside soon.

BINDING ENERGY was one of six readings of new plays in development as part of the EST/Sloan Project in this year’s First Light Festival, which runs until June 17. All readings are free, but reservations are encouraged. The festival is made possible through the alliance between The Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.       

Sandra Daley-Sharif on “granny” midwives, maternal mortality, healthcare inequities, and AMMA’S WIT

Sandra A. Daley-Sharif

When medicine advances, what gets left behind? How much of what midwives knew have we lost as modern medical practice sidelines them? In AMMA’S WIT, Sandra Daley-Sharif puts the lives and experiences of Black “granny” midwives centerstage as she tells the stories of two generations of midwives in early twentieth century Alabama: what they knew, what they suffered, how they coped.

AMMA’S WIT will have its first public reading this Thursday, June 6 at 3:00 PM at the Ensemble Studio Theatre as part of the 2024 EST/Sloan First Light Festival. The reading is free and reservations are encouraged.

Sandra kindly took the time to answer our many questions about the play.

(Interview by Rich Kelley)

What inspired you to write AMMA’S WIT?

The inspiration behind AMMA'S WIT is deeply rooted in my personal connection to the sacred art of midwifery and a profound reverence for the forgotten legacies of the granny midwives – those extraordinary Black women who embodied the divine power of bringing new life into the world.

I was born in my great-grandmother's house and having witnessed the empowering experience of both my daughters being delivered by midwives, I have always felt a profound connection to the God-given strength that lies within every woman's body. This connection fueled my desire to explore and honor the stories of those who came before us, the women who dedicated their lives to nurturing and supporting mothers during a time when hospitals were inaccessible to the poor, both Black and White.

Through my research, I discovered the narratives of trailblazers like Onnie Lee Logan, Mary Francis Hill Coley, Margaret Charles Smith, and countless others. These granny midwives were more than just birth attendants; they were family counselors, breastfeeding consultants, postpartum doulas, nutritionists, and advocates. Highly respected within their communities, they viewed their work as a sacred calling from God, a privilege to usher new life into the world.

Yet, despite their invaluable contributions, these women were ostracized and erased, victims of a society that sought to disempower women over their own bodies and choices. Their stories resonated with me on a profound level, igniting a desire to give voice to those who have been systematically silenced, to reclaim the narratives that have been suppressed, and to celebrate the resilience, spirituality, and unwavering dedication of these remarkable women.

In AMMA'S WIT, I have woven together these narratives, creating a tapestry that honors the legacy of the granny midwives, while also serving as a powerful reminder of the ongoing struggle for reproductive rights and autonomy. It is a tribute to the enduring strength of those who have fought to reclaim control over their bodies and their destinies, and a call to embrace the divine power that resides within every woman.

From left: Midwives Onnie Lee Logan, Mary Francis Hill Coley, Margaret Charles Smith

Why this play? Why now?

I think AMMA'S WIT is a timely and poignant reminder of the granny midwives' legacy. The play sheds light on their vital role in providing holistic healthcare and championing reproductive autonomy for women, especially in underserved communities. As the reversal of Roe v. Wade threatens to restrict access to safe and legal abortions, this play serves as a powerful reminder of the ongoing struggle for body autonomy and the importance of trusting women's ancestral knowledge and instincts.

Moreover, with Black women experiencing disproportionately higher rates of maternal mortality and preventable childbirth complications, AMMA'S WIT underscores the need for culturally competent and comprehensive maternal care. By honoring the granny midwives' approach to pregnancy and birthing, this play advocates a shift toward a more holistic healthcare model that empowers women and prioritizes their well-being.

What research did you do to write the play?

To write the play, I conducted extensive research by reading biographies of granny midwives, watching films/documentaries like All My Babies (about midwife Mary Francis Hill Coley) and Why Not Home?, interviewing current midwives, drawing from my personal experiences, and consulting with a liaison who works on bridging the tenuous relationship between hospitals and midwives. I also examined articles on women's experiences with the medical system, global childbirth practices involving midwifery, and the history of childbirth. This comprehensive approach informed a play that, I would say, is grounded in movement, text, and music to authentically capture the full-body experience of birth through dance and the rhythms that define time and space. 

Did you encounter any surprises as you researched the stories of different midwives in twentieth-century Alabama?

A sobering discovery from my research was the persisting false beliefs among some healthcare providers about biological differences between Black and White people, such as Black people having "less sensitive nerve endings, thicker skin, and stronger bones." These harmful beliefs have led to medical providers today underestimating Black patients' pain levels and recommending inadequate relief measures. And, here’s the kicker, shockingly, the disparities exist regardless of education or income level: Black women who have a college education or higher experience a pregnancy-related mortality rate over five times higher than White women, and 1.6 times higher than even White women with less than a high school degree. This stark reality underscores the urgent need to address systemic biases and inequities in maternal healthcare. 

Aunt Sally, midwife May 1939 Gees Bend, Alabama Photo: Marion Post Wolcott (1910-1990) Farm Security Administration. Library of Congress. Public Domain

While much of the play’s action focuses on the experiences of a fictional midwife, Amma Hagar Clark, a second plot line follows Billie Jean, a young woman, just shy of 16, pregnant by her father. Why was it important for you to include her storyline? 

It was crucial to include Billie Jean's storyline as a pregnant teen, impregnated by her father, to confront the complex and controversial issue of abortion rights head-on. Drawing from the real-life stance of a midwife I researched, who refused to perform abortions due to her personal beliefs and experiences, this parallel plot line forces the audience to grapple with the profound ethical dilemmas surrounding body autonomy and reproductive choices. By bringing in this narrative, I invite what I believe is a vital and necessary conversation about the very body empowerment issue society is grappling with today. 

What’s next for Sandra Daley-Sharif?

As a storyteller for Theatre and TV, I am driven by a passion to illuminate the stories of marginalized people with resilient spirits that have shaped our world, especially featuring women of color. My current projects are a testament to this mission.

With my new play (still researching) "Carved from Stone, Cast in Resilience," I am embarking on a journey to breathe life into the extraordinary legacies of Edmonia Lewis, Meta Warrick Fuller, and Augusta Savage – three groundbreaking African American sculptors whose triumphs and enduring influence have often been obscured. Through a blend of drama, visual storytelling, and the omniscient narration of the Goddess of Perseverance, I aim to depict the challenges and triumphs of these remarkable women, celebrating their indelible mark on the art world.

In "We Shall Overcome," a limited series for TV based on the novel The Cigar Factory, I am weaving together the parallel narratives of two working-class families, united by their shared struggles within the harsh confines of a cigar factory. As segregation initially blinds them to their common plight, the pivotal 1945 Tobacco Workers Strike ignites a powerful realization – that by joining forces, they can harness the strength of solidarity. "We Shall Overcome” not only captures a profound moment in labor history but also traces the roots of the iconic protest song that would later become the Civil Rights anthem, "We Shall Overcome.” Pitch deck available.

And then there's "Say It Loud," another limited series for TV; a vibrant exploration of the cultural revolution that swept through Harlem's iconic Apollo Theater in 1964. Here, I follow the fearless journey of a young production manager nurturing the greatest acts in the history of soul music, navigating a world in the throes of transformation with unwavering determination. Pitch deck and pilot script available.

Through these diverse narratives, I strive to amplify the voices that have been muted, to shed light on the extraordinary resilience that has paved the way for progress, and to inspire audiences to embrace the power of perseverance in the face of adversity.

AMMA’S WIT is one of six readings of new plays in development as part of the EST/Sloan Project in this year’s First Light Festival, which runs until June 17. All readings are free, but reservations are encouraged. The festival is made possible through the alliance between The Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Melisa Tien on coding, launching a FemTech app, VC sexism, and DISRUPTED

Melisa Tien Photo: Joseph O’Malley

How much of a game changer for women is the ability to code? What are the challenges in developing an app about women’s health? In her provocative new play DISRUPTED, Melisa Tien explores how two women join forces to create a brand-new app—one that tracks the menstrual cycle—and form a partnership that gets tested to its limits.

DISRUPTED will have its first public reading this Thursday, May 23 at 3:00 PM at the Ensemble Studio Theater as part of the 2024 EST/Sloan First Light Festival. The reading is free and reservations are encouraged.

Melisa generously found time between rewrites and rehearsals to talk to us about the play and her process.

(Interview by Rich Kelley)

How did DISRUPTED come to be?

 I’ve had an interest in FemTech for a while, initially as a consumer, and then as a female freelancer participating in work environments that are traditionally male-dominated. All of this was on my mind when I proposed a narrative based on the origins of the first menstruation-tracking app for EST’s Sloan commission. The play has changed a lot since that proposal, in terms of what the crux of the conflict is, and what’s at stake. I’m exceedingly grateful to EST for being so helpful and encouraging through all the permutations. 

Why this play? Why now? 

Ida Tin, Danish entrepreneur who invented Clue, the first menstruation-tracking app in 2013, and also coined the term “FemTech” for technology designed for women’s health. CC2.0

I diverged from the true story of the first menstruation-tracking app in significant ways. One of them was that I changed the setting from Denmark to the U.S. I’m more familiar with the workplace culture, gender gap, and history of tech in the U.S. To me, these topics are as germane to contemporary life as they were a decade ago when the play is set. I also elected to change the ethnicity of the named characters to those of Asian descent. A decade ago, I would have considered this a sure-fire way of killing any chances of the play being produced. Today, it feels like an invitation to an ever-growing pool of actors of Asian descent, and an ever-growing audience that embraces work featuring predominantly Asian casts, to engage with thoughtful and thought-provoking storytelling.  

What would you like the audience to take away from DISRUPTED? 

That they’ve seen something engrossing unfold between two people, and they’re unsure whether either one was 100% in the right or 100% in the wrong. Also—how apropos it is that the context is the trial-by-fire world of tech and app development. 

Do you code? Have you ever developed an app yourself?

I’ve taken a couple of free HTML coding courses through the New York Public Library’s TechConnect program. We didn’t go as far as app development; we only created very basic websites. I do have a friend who’s a musician who has successfully developed apps geared toward music-making.

A screen from the menstruation-tracking app Clue

Did you work with a consultant? How did that change the play?

I got the chance to speak at length with the person who coded the apps that my musician friend published. He provided a ton of insight—he assured me that the way the story plays out is believable, he offered details on what constitutes “good” and “bad” code, and he explained how databases associated with apps can often be more valuable than the users themselves, among many other things. All of this impacted what I put into, and how I told, the story.

As you present it in the play, coding seems to offer truly disruptive power. It can be a tool for good in enabling a socially enriching app or it can be a means of mischief, even destruction. Does the ability to code change the game for women who code?

Today there are organizations whose mission is to get more women (and any non-male-identifying folx, for that matter) into coding; there’s still a pretty stark gap in the industry. Because of this, if you’re a woman who can code, and code well, you stand a good chance of getting hired over a male with similar abilities. I’d add that being a coder is thought of as the lowest level of a hierarchy that places developers above coders, and software engineers above developers. Any of these levels is available to women (or anyone non-male identifying) for the taking.

How did you make the scenes Juni has with the venture capitalists so sadly, comically on the nose? Did you interview any VCs as part of your research? 

As it turns out, I did not interview any VCs or angel investors, partly because I didn’t want them to feel like I was pointedly criticizing them—though I do have criticisms about their approach. Instead, I dug around and found the kinds of comments the real founder of the first menstruation-tracking app received when she went through her first round of pitching. She pitched only to men (unsurprising for the time), and though their feedback was given in good faith and intended to be helpful, it seems patently absurd from my perspective as someone who menstruates and uses a menstruation-tracking app religiously. That vast disconnect—of experience and understanding—is sad, funny, and also fascinating to me.

From left, Jennifer Tsay (Shin-Yi) and Jaime Schwarz (Juni)

In your recent rewrite of DISRUPTED, you begin with Shin-Yi and Juni onstage reflecting on their journey together so that it becomes something of a “memory” play. Why make that change?  

I’m interested in seeing them tell their story as a team, up to the point where the app gets massive amounts of funding and really explodes. Then I’m interested in seeing how their narratives begin to diverge.  I’m intrigued by how different perspectives translate to different accounts of how an event happened, and how and why things went wrong. 

What message does DISRUPTED have for those interested in launching a successful app?

Launching an app is not unlike putting a work of theater out in the world, insofar as if you have an idea, and the will to bring that idea to fruition, then you’re well on your way. Both require insane amounts of hard work to realize, but just about anyone with a good idea, tenacious will, and decent-to-exceptional ability can do it.

You’ve written as many librettos for operas—and had them produced—as you have plays. How is writing a libretto different from writing a play? Do you have a preference? 

When I write a libretto, I start with a detailed outline prior to writing the first line of text. The outline indicates every plot point and every moment where one or more singers will sing a big number. After I finish a draft of a libretto, much of the revision happens within the songs; I focus on fine-tuning the lyrics. When I write a play, more likely than not, there’s no outline and I’m going on instinct, forging ahead with only a vague notion of where I’m headed. Once I’ve got a messy draft down, I’ll revise—plot, structure, characters, whatever needs revising. I like writing plays and librettos equally, as both are such different processes; they exercise different parts of my brain.

What’s next for Melisa Tien? 

In June, with support from The Assembly, I’ll be showing an excerpt of a piece about autonomous driving technology and its impact on the long-haul trucking industry and long-distance truckers in particular. It will have movement and text and is based on interviews I did with truckers along Interstate-80 over the course of a cross-country research trip. Next year, I’m premiering a couple of short operas, one with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and one with American Opera Projects here in New York City. And somewhere in between, I’m hoping to make a short film.

DISRUPTED is one of six readings of new plays in development as part of the EST/Sloan Project in this year’s First Light Festival, which runs until June 17. All readings are free, but reservations are encouraged. The festival is made possible through the alliance between The Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.       

Jacquelyn Reingold on fear, neuroscience, sexism, playwrights over 50, and FEAR LESS

Jacquelyn Reingold

What would life be like if you could not experience fear? How much fear do we need? Which part of the brain governs fear? FEAR LESS, the compelling new play by Jacquelyn Reingold, tells the story of Orva, whose damaged amygdala prevents her from feeling fear, and Nadine, the neuroscientist who spends years studying her. What transpires is an investigation into fear, fearlessness, boundaries, friendship, and the struggle to survive.

FEAR LESS will have its first public reading this Thursday, May 16 at 3:00 PM at the Ensemble Studio Theater as part of the 2024 EST/Sloan First Light Festival. The reading is free and reservations are encouraged.

Squeezing in time between rehearsals, rewrites, and other commitments, Jacquelyn Reingold kindly agreed to tell us more.

(Interview by Rich Kelley)

Where did the idea for FEAR LESS come from?

The idea for FEAR LESS came from reading about a real person, studied for decades, because she was “fearless.” There was a brief explosion of articles, social media, about a woman with this unusual condition. The more I read, the more questions I had, and the more intrigued I was. It got me thinking about the role of fear in women’s lives. I wondered what would happen if two women: one “fearless,” and one “fearful,” were put together, dramatically. That’s where the play began.

FEAR LESS covers so much: the neuroscience of what happens when someone has a damaged amygdala, the complex relationship that can develop between a researcher and her subject, the power politics of scientific research. What research did you do to write this play?

I talked with several neuroscientists about fear, which, I quickly learned, was infinitely complex. I read articles and books that discussed conflicting, changing, theories. The research was, for me, a way to find questions to write to, and themes to dig into. At a certain point the play took over. I then cared about the characters, their lives, their arcs, and I hoped the audience would, as well. The play became the thing. I tried to find these two women’s stories, best I could.

I also heard from neuroscientists about sexism and racism in the field, and in academia in general, past and present. One story about the male professors in a department lunching at a strip club without the one female professor, stuck with me. In addition to many anecdotes of biased practices around funding, hiring, assignments, credit, promotions, grants. It was a long list.

What do you want the audience to take away from FEAR LESS?

My hope is that people will leave the play thinking about the experience of fear — for Orva, a white working-class woman, with a damaged “fear center,” and for Nadine, a Black neuroscientist, with a sensitive “fear center.” And I hope people will think about the role of fear in all our lives, but especially for women. How much do we need? How much is too much, or too little? And how, like Orva and Nadine, are we different, similar, allied, impossibly apart, and how we might come together. Or not.

Your play String Fever about string theory, the Theory of Everything, and other string-related subjects, was an EST/Sloan Mainstage Production in 2003. What makes writing an EST/Sloan play different?

The specific challenge for me, in writing an EST/Sloan play, is finding how to make the science personal. If I don’t find a personal way in, I can’t write it. If I can’t find a story I care about, I don’t want to write it. I write plays because I love to explore characters I love, so if I can’t find that piece of their heart that moves me, and makes me want to imagine their stories, I won’t write the play. And science doesn’t necessarily lead to that. At least not for me.

Evan Handler with Jacquelyn Reingold at the Lillys in 2023

You received a Lilly Award last year for your work as a playwright and for co-founding Honor Roll!, an advocacy group for women playwrights over 40. How did Honor Roll! come about? Have you been able to measure its impact?

Yes, I received a Lilly Award last year, as a playwright and as an advocate. It was thrilling. Honor Roll! an organization I co-founded, received a monetary award as well. Honor Roll! is a grass-roots group that advocates for women+ playwrights over 40. Since its founding, I’ve discovered it’s women over 50 that are (mission statement:) “the generation once excluded because of sexism, now overlooked because of ageism.” Playwright Cheryl Davis and I are on a campaign to meet with every theater in New York to advocate for greater inclusion for women playwrights over 50. Future seasons will tell us if we’ve succeeded. We are not giving up.

In his speech introducing you at the Lilly Awards, Evan Handler (who was in String Fever at EST) attested that you are his favorite playwright, noting “I love Jackie’s plays because they mine a life that’s full of truths stranger than fiction, to create metaphors more perfect than poetry.” He then went on to say that your plays are “shockingly underproduced.” Why do you think that is?

I was so happy when EST member Evan Handler, who directed my first play, and was in String Fever, introduced me at the Lillys. Why are my plays, as Evan said, “shockingly unproduced?” I guess you’d have to ask theaters. Maybe I said, and did, too many stupid things when I was younger. Or maybe there were too few opportunities then, and at a certain point, I wasn’t marketable. I didn’t go to an elite MFA program. I never had a mentor. I don’t care about fashion; I write what interests me. Or maybe theaters don’t like my writing! But once I passed my mid-40s, almost all of the small-theater opportunities I’d had, disappeared, and never returned. Happily, I was embraced by TV, where I had fun getting paid, writing for some great shows, and working with some amazing people. But I always missed what I most loved: writing plays.

What’s next for Jacquelyn Reingold?

What’s next for me? Another play.

FEAR LESS is one of six readings of new plays in development as part of the EST/Sloan Project in this year’s First Light Festival, which runs until June 17. All readings are free, but reservations are encouraged. The festival is made possible through the alliance between The Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.       

Las Borinqueñas: The Science and History Behind the Play

The EST/Sloan Project is committed to “challenge and broaden the public’s understanding of science and technology and their impact on our lives.” In that spirit, we offer this essay on the science and history behind Las Borinqueñas, the 2023/2024 Mainstage Production of the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in collaboration with the Latinx Playwrights Circle & Boundless Theatre Company.  Las Borinqueñas began previews at the Ensemble Studio Theatre on April 3 and ran through May 5.

An essay by Rich Kelley

The United States in the 1950s was an unlikely place to develop the first oral contraceptive. The U.S. Federal Government and 30 states banned birth control. The NIH, the National Science Foundation, and the WHO refused to support reproductive research. Pharmaceutical companies considered testing an oral contraceptive too risky: They would need healthy women of childbearing age as test subjects. Why would those women want to take part?

Birth control activists wanted to fund the development of a “simple, foolproof birth control method,” preferably a pill. They approached Dr. Gregory Pincus, whose work studying fertility had earned him a reputation as something of a “mad scientist.” As a researcher at Harvard, Pincus garnered national attention when he developed the first test tube rabbit embryo. Scare headlines about “fatherless babies” followed and Pincus was denied tenure.

Pincus accepted the challenge to develop a birth control pill. He focused his research on progesterone, “nature’s contraceptive.” When an egg is fertilized, progesterone prepares the uterus for implantation and shuts down the ovaries, so no more eggs are produced. Could progesterone be put into a pill, effectively tricking a woman’s body into thinking it was pregnant?

From left: Celson-Ramon Garcia, John Rock, Gregory Pincus (seated) in 1957. Source: Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research

Pincus began doing animal studies using synthetic progesterone with promising results. For the first human tests, he partnered with Dr. John Rock. Rock had been working on curing infertility by injecting women with progesterone and estrogen to pause ovulation and allow the reproductive system to reset. In one study, after stopping the hormones, 13 of 80 patients became pregnant within four months, an effect gynecologists called the "Rock rebound." At Pincus's suggestion, Rock tried the same experiment with the new oral contraceptive, with similar success.

For their first large-scale clinical trial, Pincus and Rock chose Puerto Rico, where the population had surged by 18% in a decade, a growth which caused concern among American politicians and activists (often, but not always, motivated by xenophobia and racism) as well as some of the Puerto Rican upper classes. Unlike the mainland U.S., birth control was legal in Puerto Rico. Sixty-seven family planning clinics promoted the rhythm method, provided diaphragms, spermicides, or condoms, and also referred patients to hospitals for sterilization. Many physicians and reformers believed sterilization was the solution to population control. Hospitals had policies urging maternal patients to have la operación after delivery; some required it after the third child. One survey in 1953-54 found that 40% of all women who had practiced some form of contraception had had la operación. But Puerto Rican women were often not informed by their doctors that sterilization is permanent. 

Dr. Edris Rice-Wray consulting with low-income women in the 1950s Source: Henrylee Marlo CC4.0

Oral contraceptive trials began in Rio Piedras in 1956, directed by American Dr. Edris Rice-Wray and Puerto Rican social worker Iris Rodriguez. They selected a group of 100 women and a control group of another 125. Participants had to be under 40 and must have already had two children to ensure fertility. The trial targeted economically disadvantaged women in Puerto Rico, who were often marginalized and lacked access to adequate healthcare. Many of these women were not adequately informed about the potential risks and benefits of the pill. Some were not aware that they were participating in a clinical trial and taking an experimental drug. 

Rice-Wray gave each woman a 20-day supply of the pills, known as Enovid. "When the bottle is over and you start menstruating," she told her participants, "you count one, two, three, on your fingers, and when you have counted all your fingers, that is the time to start again" on a new bottle. If birth rates went down among participants taking Enovid compared with those in the control group, the pill could be deemed effective.

Enovid, the first birth control pill from G. D. Searle Source: G.D. Searle & Co.

The pills used in the first trials contained an extremely high dose of hormones: more than 10 times the average dose of the pill today. Many participants experienced extreme, sometimes debilitating, side effects. Rice-Wray recorded her findings: among the first 221 women in the study, about 17% had negative reactions and 25 withdrew because of those reactions. There were complaints of dizziness, nausea, headaches, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Pincus considered most of these psychosomatic. Some women reported severe complications, such as blood clots and strokes. The high incidence of adverse reactions raised concerns about the safety of the pill and the adequacy of monitoring and oversight during the trial. Even more troubling, three women died during the trials, but because there were no autopsies, it was never learned if the pill was a factor in their deaths. After the trial concluded, there was limited follow-up and long-term monitoring of the participants to assess the lasting effects of the contraceptive pill. 

By the end of 1958, more than 800 women had enrolled in tests of the pill, but only 130 had taken it for a year or more. To disguise this shortfall, Pincus presented his data in terms of the number of menstrual cycles instead of the number of women. "In the 1,279 menstrual cycles during which the regime of treatment was meticulously followed,” Pincus wrote, “there was not a single pregnancy.” 1,279 menstrual cycles sounded more impressive than 130 women. 

In 1957, the FDA approved pharmaceutical giant Searle’s application for Enovid as a treatment for menstrual disorders and infertility. The FDA finally approved Enovid as a contraceptive in May 1960. By 1965, more than 6.5 million married women and an untold number of unmarried women in the U.S. were using the pill.

The introduction of the birth control pill marked a revolutionary turning point in women's reproductive rights, societal roles, and economic empowerment. With the ability to control when and if they became pregnant, women gained unprecedented freedom to make decisions about their bodies and futures. This autonomy extended beyond family planning to encompass educational pursuits, career advancement, and personal fulfillment and to challenge traditional gender roles and patriarchal structures. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the labor force participation rate of women aged 25 to 54 in the United States increased from 34.9% in 1950 to 60% in 1999. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the gender wage gap narrowed from 60% in 1960 to 75% in 2020.

Labor Force Participation of Women in the USA, 1955–2005 Source: Our World in Data

By enabling women to control their fertility and delay childbirth, the pill has reduced maternal and infant mortality in countries with high fertility rates and has empowered women to pursue higher education and increased women’s labor force participation worldwide. Yet, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 214 million women of reproductive age in developing regions have an unmet need for modern contraception, highlighting the persistent barriers to access.

Today, about 10 million women in the U.S. use the pill, and 13 million have undergone sterilization. However, in 2016, 40% of Puerto Rican women of childbearing age who used birth control had been sterilized, while less than 10% surveyed used an oral contraceptive. During the Zika outbreak of that year, a temporary CDC assistance program made many forms of birth control available for free and included a broad education campaign to inform women of the opportunity. During that program, there was a surge in women accessing birth control, suggesting that price and information access are both factors that continue to make birth control less accessible to Puerto Rican women today.

Resources:

Briggs, Laura. Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico. University of California Press, 2002.

Eng, Jonathan. The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution. W. W. Norton & Company, 2014.

Garcia, Ana Maria, La Operación documentary, 40 minutes. Latin American Film Project, 1982.

Lankford, Kathryn. More than a Way Station: Ground-Level Experiences in the Field Trials of Oral Contraceptives and IUDs in Puerto Rico, 1956-1966 (Ph.d dissertation, 2021)

Ramirez de Arellano, Annette, and Conrad Seipp. Colonialism, Catholicism, and Contraception: A History of Birth Control in Puerto Rico. The University of North Carolina Press, 1983.

Speroff, Leon. A Good Man, Gregory Goodwin Pincus: The Man, His Story, the Birth Control Pill.  Arnica Publishing Inc., 2009.

Tone, Andrea. Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America. Hill & Wang, 2001.

World Health Organization, “Contraception”

“Las Borinqueñas is more than a title” A Personal Statement from Nelson Diaz-Marcano

Las Borinqueñas is more than a title.

More than a play. They are the women who help a whole country not only survive but preserve its identity. They’re the people who raised and cared for me and mine everyday, despite everything trying to tell them we were not worth it. Las Borinqueñas are our mothers, sisters, partners, friends, who take care of their community despite themselves. Las Borinqueñas are heroes who are often forgotten.

Nelson Diaz-Marcano (Photo: Jackie Abbott)

My obsession with this story started years ago when I was living with my then girlfriend who had severe menstrual pains. Her doctor suggested the pill might help and she only found one that helped after years of trying different formulas which often left her paralyzed from deep cramps or so uncomfortable she had to forgo eating that day. This led me to study the birth control pill history and to my shock I found that the trials had not only happened illegally in my homeland, but that I knew someone that had been through them. She  had passed away of natural causes by the time I found the story, so I never got to talk to her. This woman who sacrificed her body to help create the miracle of birth control had been buried and barely anybody knew her name. Yet everyone knows the name of Gregory Pincus, Edris Rice-Wray, John Rock and Margaret Sanger.

That unfairness, that these people who gave everything could be lost to time, while these people that took advantage took all the credit, didn’t sit well with me. It doesn’t sit well with me because it’s another part of the erasure of a culture so beautiful that to conquer it,  you have to make them forget who they are.

But Las Borinqueñas won’t let us forget.

My mother Carmen Yaritza Marcano, who woke up every morning, despite rheumatoid arthritis, to make sure we were fed and educated, wouldn’t let me do that.

My abuela Hilda Suarez, who was one of the most respected teachers and one of the first post office workers in Gurabo Puerto Rico, won’t let me do that.

My other abuela Victoria Rodriguez who raised kids since she was a teenager, would never let me do that.

And my sister Yarinel Diaz is a living reminder of the everyday strength that is required to exist as a Borinqueña. Yet she thrives.

All these women were matriarchs of a proud but embattled culture.

As a child, Hilda was paraded in an American flag dress through the town square so she could receive benefits once her father died and her sister couldn’t work.

Victoria was married to my grandfather when she was 12; she had to raise her own kids, but also the kids from my grandfather’s other wives.

All these women were the women the community relied on.

My mother helped heroin addicts recover, fed people in need and never denied help to anybody, even while she acted like she hated helping.

My abuela Victoria is considered a matriarch not only by my grandfather’s children but by the whole community of the Barrio Jaguas.

My abuela Hilda was an unofficial advisor to local politicians from my town. She also taught English to most of the town in the 60s and 70s.

It continues with my sister, who after taking care of my mother for more than 15 years, created a fitness program  to improve the lives of older people in our hometown.

These are the women who raised me. The woman who would never let me forget. So I won’t let you forget them. This play is for them. Because without them I would be nothing. Without them, Puerto Rico would have been a memory. Thank you Borinqueñas.

Las Borinqueñas is the 2023/2024 Mainstage Production of the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in collaboration with the Latinx Playwrights Circle & Boundless Theatre Company. It began previews at the Ensemble Studio Theatre on April 3 and ran through May 5.