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.

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.