Poet Pichchenda Bao, Neuroscientist Heather Berlin, Artist Daveth Cheth, Designer Davey Chhoeun, and Chef Chinchakriya Un join Dramaturg Soriya Chum to discuss the many sides of what you are now

From left, Pichchenda Bao, Heather Berlin, Daveth Cheth, Davey Chhoeun, Chinchakriya Un, Soriya Chum

On April 2, following the 2:00 PM matinee performance of what you are now, the powerful new drama by Sam Chanse, everyone is encouraged to stay for a talkback about the historical, cultural, and scientific context of the play, as well as the many issues it addresses, including how trauma gets passed from one generation to another, Cambodian American life in the U.S., and what happens in the brain when we form memories and create art. Dramaturg Soriya Chum will moderate the discussion with neuroscientist Heather Berlin, poet Pichchenda Bao, artist and activist Daveth Cheth, designer Davey Chhoeun, and chef Chinchakriya Un.

what you are now asks what if our memories aren’t fixed, but change each time we recall the past? This world premiere by Sam Chanse is a thrillingly insightful new play that asks the audience to move through the shifting dance between the past and present, and to consider how with new understanding we might change “who you were then” to “what you are now.”

what you are now is this year’s mainstage production of the EST/Sloan Project, EST’s partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop new plays “exploring the worlds of science and technology,” an initiative now in its twenty-third year, and is being co-presented with The Civilians, a theater group dedicated to investigative theater, projects created through field research, community collaborations, and other methods of in-depth inquiry.

About the Panelists

Pichchenda Bao

Pichchenda Bao is a poet born in Cambodia at the end of the Khmer Rouge regime. She came with her parents to the United States as refugees in the 1980s, and now she lives, writes and raises her children in New York City. Her work delves into the urgencies and uncertainties of post-war and post-genocide survival and resilience, generational tension, motherhood, and feminism. Her honors include a Pushcart Prize nomination, an Emerging Writer Fellowship from Aspen Words, a grant from Queens Council on the Arts, a residency from Bethany Arts Community, and an invitation to the Kundiman writers retreat as a poetry fellow.

Dr. Heather Berlin

Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in NY. She explores the neural basis of impulsive and compulsive psychiatric and neurological disorders with the aim of developing novel treatments. She is also interested in the brain basis of consciousness, dynamic unconscious processes, and creativity.  Berlin is a passionate science communicator and a committee member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She’s hosted series on PBS and the Discovery Channel and makes regular appearances on StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, BBC, History Channel, Netflix, National Geographic, and TEDx, and was featured in the documentary film Bill Nye: Science Guy. Dr. Berlin also co-wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed off-Broadway show, Off the Top, about the neuroscience of improvisation, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival show, Impulse Control.  Berlin received her doctorate from the University of Oxford, and Master of Public Health from Harvard University, and trained in clinical neuropsychology at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Department of Neurological Surgery. She is a visiting scholar at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and was a Visiting Professor at Vassar College, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology/University of Zurich, and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Daveth Cheth

Daveth Cheth is the founder, writer, and visionary behind Khmer Identity, a platform honoring Khmer legacies and contemporary Khmer voices. Born in Cambodia, Daveth immigrated to Lynn, Massachusetts when he was nine. A queer, non-binary Cambodian artist and activist, Daveth explores the  mediums of art, dance, and spoken word by focusing his work around queer visibility and Cambodian heritage and culture. A native Khmer speaker, Daveth teaches online classes in Khmer through Khmer Identity.

Davey Chhoeun

Davey Chhoeun is co-founder of Khmer Identify. The youngest daughter of four, and the only one born in the U.S., Davey was born and raised in Lynn, Massachusetts, where her family immigrated from Cambodia in 1988. Davey aspires to share her creative lens with her community and the world through apparel design and many personal hobbies. She graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Design with a BFA in Fashion Design. Currently, she is a designer at a manufacturing company based in Boston. In 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, she collaborated with Daveth Cheth to create an exhibition to share their mutual heritage with the world. This became Khmer Identity.

Chinchakriya Un

Chinchakriya Un is the chef and owner of Kreung Cambodia.  Kreung is a project that highlights her family’s recipes and new inspired dishes that she creates. Kreung is a traveling pop up with roots in Brooklyn, NY. Chinchakriya’s goals are to raise money to buy a tractor for her family in Cambodia, create a residency for artists, connect with the Cambodian diaspora around the world, and to document her family’s stories from the past and present to include in a cookbook. She was born in a refugee camp, moved to Massachusetts and grew up in a neighborhood with other immigrant families, predominately Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Cape Verdeans, and attended a predominately white school. Chinchakriya has found  that connecting with her elders and Khmer folks in the diaspora is a way that she continues to grow her understanding about the Khmer culture. She hopes that Kreung can exist as a platform for other young aspiring chefs to showcase their creations.

About the Moderator

Soriya K. Chum

Soriya K. Chum is a Cambodian American writer, dramaturg, and project manager working in the fields of arts and culture and book publishing. He currently produces consumer engagement events and programs for the Random House division of Penguin Random House. Previously, he has held roles at the flagship branch of The New York Public Library, Theatre for a New Audience, and the Asian American Arts Alliance. As a dramaturg, he specializes in providing support to scripted projects that focus on the lives of contemporary immigrants and refugees, particularly intergenerational stories that center the perspectives and experiences of Cambodian Americans.

what you are now began previews on March 10 and runs through April 3 at EST. You can purchase tickets here.

Community Organizers Sothea Chiemruom, Sanary Phen, and Thida Virak join Neuroscientist Daniela Schiller and Editor Laura Ly to discuss inherited trauma, Cambodian American life, and what you are now

From left, Sothea Chiemruom, Sanary Phen, Thida Virak, Daniela Schiller, and Laura Ly.

On March 26, following the 2:00 PM matinee performance of what you are now, the powerful new drama by Sam Chanse, everyone is encouraged to stay for a talkback about the historical, cultural, and scientific context of the play, as well as the many issues it addresses, including how the brain forms memories, Cambodian American life in the U.S., and the neuroscience of inherited trauma. Journalist-editor Laura Ly will moderate the discussion with neuroscientist Daniela Schiller, and community organizers Sothea Chiemruom, Sanary Phen, and Thida Virak.

what you are now asks what if our memories aren’t fixed, but change each time we recall the past? This world premiere by Sam Chanse is a thrillingly insightful new play that asks the audience to move through the shifting dance between the past and present, and to consider how with new understanding we might change “who you were then” to “what you are now.”

what you are now is this year’s mainstage production of the EST/Sloan Project, EST’s partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop new plays “exploring the worlds of science and technology,” an initiative now in its twenty-third year, and is being co-presented with The Civilians, a theater group dedicated to investigative theater, projects created through field research, community collaborations, and other methods of in-depth inquiry.

About the Panelists

Sothea Chiemruom

Sothea Chiemruom is the Executive Director at CMAA-the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association in Lowell, MA. He has over 25 years of experience in day-to-day program operations, administration, management, reporting, and ongoing work in advocacy, and public relations. CMAA provides services for not only Khmer but vulnerable individuals who need support with everyday challenges. Throughout his career, Sothea has engaged youth, the elderly, and the underrepresented and promoted programs that serve them. A strong proponent for the education of immigrants and refugees, he promotes leadership training, economic development, and civic participation. He actively supports the empowerment and self-sufficiency of community members. He serves as vice-chairperson of the Affordable Housing Trust in the Town of Tyngsborough, MA.  Sothea has participated at NeighborWorks Training Institute, a  leadership program. A refugee from Cambodia, he has lived and worked in Boston and Lowell. He currently lives in Tyngsbo, MA with his wife, Bora, and their children. He enjoys the outdoors and gardening.

Sanary Phen

Poet, writer and storyteller, Sanary Phen was born in a refugee camp in Thailand during the Khmer Rouge era in Cambodia. She and her family emigrated to the United States in 1981 and resettled in Lowell, MA, which has been her home for more than 35 years. Sanary has a deep love and appreciation for the community and takes pride in giving back to the city and its people. She has over 15 years of experience in social work in the nonprofit sector and is currently working for Coalition for a Better Acre as their Workforce Development Coordinator. Sanary is also a freelance writer for the Lowell Sun and a dedicated volunteer with the Cambodian American Literary Arts Association.

Dr. Daniela Schiller

Dr. 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. 

Thida Virak

Thida Virak is the Director of Social Services & Advocacy at Mekong NYC and was previously Lead Organizer for Mekong NYC for ten years. Born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Thida immigrated to the Bronx, where she began her work in the community as a volunteer. Shortly after Mekong NYC was founded in 2011, she joined as a part-time organizer and quickly helped build Mekong NYC’s community base, and was promoted to Director of Social Services & Advocacy in October 2021. Mekong NYC is a social justice organization that brings dignity and value to the lives of Southeast Asians in the Bronx and throughout New York City. As an organizer, advocate, interpreter and translator, freedom fighter, and mother, she exemplifies the spirit of social justice and advocacy. Her work explores identities, culture, collective healing, mutual supports, and community building, and deepens Mekong NYC’s campaigns for health justice, mental health justice, and the end of deportation in the Southeast Asian community. She also serves as a delegate in various coalitions, like the Bronx-Wide People’s Platform. Thida attended John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Borough of Manhattan Community College, and completed ANHD’s Center for Community Leadership Organizing program.

About the Moderator

Laura Ly

Laura Ly is an Emmy-nominated journalist and editor based in New York City. In her time with CNN, she has also worked in Hong Kong and Atlanta. She currently covers breaking news across the northeast United States. She is the daughter of Khmer refugees from Battambang and Takeo provinces.  Ly is a longtime Board Member of the Cambodian American Literary Arts Association and also serves on their literary magazine committee. Each year, the organization publishes the “Stilt House” zine, a showcase dedicated to celebrating the work of artists in the Cambodian diaspora. Ly is originally from Connecticut and is a graduate of Columbia University. In her free time, she enjoys travel writing, biking, playing badminton, and attempting to cook Khmer food.

what you are now began previews on March 10 and runs through April 3 at EST. You can purchase tickets here.

Actor Robert Lee Leng, Neuroscientist Daniela Schiller, Poet Sokunthary Svay and Actor Sophia Skiles to discuss how we form memories, Cambodian American culture, inherited trauma and what you are now

From left, Robert Lee Leng, Daniela Schiller, Sokunthary Svay, Sophia Skiles

On March 19, following the 2:00 PM matinee performance of what you are now, the compelling new drama by Sam Chanse, everyone is encouraged to stay for a talkback about the historical, cultural, and scientific context of the play, as well as the many issues it addresses, including how the brain forms memories, Cambodian American memory work, and the neuroscience of inherited trauma. Actor-teacher Sophia Skiles will moderate the discussion with Cambodian-Chinese American actor Robert Lee Leng (Darany in the play), neuroscientist Daniela Schiller, and Cambodian American poet-scholar-librettist Sokunthary Svay.

what you are now asks what if our memories aren’t fixed, but change each time we recall the past? This world premiere by Sam Chanse is a thrillingly insightful new play that asks the audience to move through the shifting dance between the past and present, and to consider how with new understanding we might change “who you were then” to “what you are now.”

what you are now is this year’s mainstage production of the EST/Sloan Project, EST’s partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop new plays “exploring the worlds of science and technology,” an initiative now in its twenty-third year, and is being co-presented with The Civilians, a theater group dedicated to investigative theater, projects created through field research, community collaborations, and other methods of in-depth inquiry.

About the Panelists

Robert Lee Leng

Robert Lee Leng (Darany in the play) I am a first generation Cambodian-Chinese American/Artist. To be an artist during the Khmer Rouge regime meant immediate death; but we survived; we are surviving. We are a very expansive, complex, eclectic, and lit community of people.  I love us. Read Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So; Read Unsettled: Cambodian Refugees in the New York City Hyperghetto by Eric Tang; Stream music by $tupid Young, VBO, VannDa; follow @Khmer.identity on Instagram. Reach out, donate and show support to CMAA Lowell and Mekong NYC.

Dr. Daniela Schiller

Dr. 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. 

Sokunthary Svay

Sokunthary Svay was born in a refugee camp in Thailand shortly after her parents fled Cambodia following the fall of the Khmer Rouge. They resettled in the Bronx, where she grew up. She is a founding member of the Cambodian American Literary Arts Association (CALAA), and has received fellowships from the American Opera Project, Poets House, Willow Books, and CUNY, as well as commissions from Washington National Opera, White Snake Project, and ISSUE Project Room. Her first book, Apsara in New York, was published in 2017. Her first opera, Woman of Letters, premiered at the Kennedy Center in January 2020. Her second opera,Chhlong Tonle, funded by the OPERA American IDEA grant, premieres in March 2022. She is currently pursuing her PhD in English at the CUNY Graduate Center.

About the Moderator

Sophia Skiles

Sophia Skiles (she/her) is a theater actor, a teacher of acting, facilitator, and citizen—purposefully blurring, disrupting, and bridging the boundaries of the stage, the classroom, and the public.  She has performed in productions directed by Michael Kahn, May Adrales, Chay Yew, Ralph Peña, Andrei Serban, Mary Zimmerman, Richard Foreman, and David Herskovits, among others - in venues throughout New York City, and across the United States and Europe.  Sophia is Associate Professor of the Practice and Head of Acting of the Brown/Trinity MFA program and a former twice-elected Trustee of the New Paltz Central School District Board of Education.  She was a member of the 2016 artEquity National Facilitator training cohort and the 2021 artEquity BIPOC Leadership Circle. 

what you are now began previews on March 10 and runs through April 3 at EST. You can purchase tickets here.

A Note on the Neuroscience Behind what you are now

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 neuroscience behind what you are now by Sam Chanse, the 2022 EST/Sloan mainstage production. what you are now began previews on March 10 and runs through April 3. You can purchase tickets here.

The Neuroscience Behind what you are now

By Rich Kelley, Science Press Liaison

“Memory is a marvelous device, a means of transporting ourselves to earlier times. We can go back a moment, or most of a life. But as we all know, it’s not perfect, and is certainly not literal. It’s a reconstruction of facts and experiences on the basis of the way they were stored, not as they actually occurred. And it’s a reconstruction by a  brain that is different from the one that formed the  memory.” —Joseph LeDoux

A quick review of the metaphors we have used for memory reveals how far we have come—and how inadequate we are at describing it: from wax tablet to library to labyrinth to enchanted loom to switchboard to network to leaky bucket to computer program to hologram. From a scientific standpoint, what has changed our thinking about memory has usually come from an experiment. WHAT YOU ARE NOW refers to several significant experiments in the history of neuroscience. We thought you might find this background information on some of them interesting.

Ivan Pavlov (1849‒1936) was a Russian physiologist best known for inventing what has come to be known as “classical conditioning.” To study the physiology of the digestive system, Pavlov invented surgical procedures to create fistulas and gastric pouches on unanesthetized dogs so that he could repeat experiments for months and measure secretions outside the body. During his research Pavlov noticed that the dogs salivated when they saw the person who fed them. This led to his famous experiment: if he played a sound—usually on a metronome, not a bell—just when the food was put in the dog’s mouth, the dog would salivate at the sound, even when the food did not follow. This association turned a previously neutral stimulus—the tone—into a “conditioned” stimulus that generated a “conditioned” response—the salivating. Pavlov called the saliva thus generated “psychic secretions.” The power of the stimuli depended on conditions. If the tone was sounded repeatedly without the dog being fed, the salivating would decrease and eventually stop completely.

One of Pavlov's dogs with a surgically implanted cannula to measure salivation, preserved in the Pavlov Museum in Ryazan, Russia.

American behavioral psychologists favored Pavlov’s procedure because it removed any question of will, subjective experience, or consciousness from their experiments. Yet Pavlov himself never denied the inner life of his experimental animals. As Daniel Todes notes in his biography of Pavlov, “[Pavlov} identified them as heroes and cowards, intelligent and obtuse, independent and compliant, sociable and aloof, freedom fighters and narrow pragmatists.”

Eric Kandel (1929‒ ) is an Austrian-born American medical doctor, psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and professor of biochemistry who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2000 for his work on the physiological basis of memory storage in neurons. Kandel is perhaps best known for his insight that learning processes are similar among all life forms and that he could more easily study what changes occur in the synaptic connections between neurons during learning and memory storage by electrophysical analysis of an invertebrate as simple as a sea slug. He published his initial findings in 1963 and over the next twenty years his work in molecular neural science led to several remarkable findings, including that short-term memory involved functional changes in existing synapses but long-term memory involves a change in the number of synaptic connections.

A mouse in a glass container partially filled with water, as part of a forced-swimming test. The use of forced swimming tests is criticized by animal rights groups, notably PETA. (Photo: TaoPan CC3.0)

Learned safety in mice. The play refers to one of Kandel’s experiments with Daniela D. Pollak in which they conditioned mice to feel safe in stressful situations. Kandel called this conditioned inhibition of fear “learned safety.” For fear conditioning they associated an auditory tone with a shock to the mouse’s foot. For safety conditioning, the tone was not followed by a shock. The safety conditioned mice learned to associate the tone with the absence of danger and showed less anxiety, The mice were then given a stress test and put into a pool of water for a swim test. As Kandel explained, “In this seemingly desperate situation—where the mice have no option to escape from the water—they start to show signs of behavioral despair that are ameliorated by antidepressant medications. We found that the mice trained for safety could overcome their sense of hopelessness in the swim test.”

Memory reconsolidation. Memories evolve over time and “consolidation” and “reconsolidation” have come to describe the “two lives” memories have after the initial coding of new information. Consolidation refers to the extended period after learning when new information gets “fixed” at a cellular level and interleaved with existing memories. Much of consolidation is now thought to occur during sleep. Reconsolidation describes the process in which a newly consolidated memory gets modified as it is reactivated. In 2000 neuroscientists Karim Nader, Glenn E. Schafe and Joseph E. LeDoux performed an experiment to test whether it is possible to extinguish a “new memory” so that it never becomes a long-term memory. Current models of learning at the time proposed that new proteins need to be produced for recent experiences to be encoded into long-term memory. In the experiment, rats were conditioned to fear a tone by being given a foot shock. When they heard the tone, they froze into immobility. Twenty-four hours later, the rats were played the tone but given an infusion of anisomycin, a drug that inhibits protein synthesis, into the amygdala. Twenty-four hours later, when the rats which had been given the drug were played the tone, they didn’t freeze. They had lost the memory of the conditioning. This group was tested for up to 14 days and still had no memory of the conditioned response. A test group was given anisomycin without the tone being played. Twenty-four hours later, when they were played the tone, they still froze. In order for the conditioned response to be extinguished, the memory had to be reactivated—the tone had to be played—for the drug to interfere with memory retrieval.

A diagram representing a common understanding of memory systems (Image: Erich Parker)

Extinguishing traumatic memories. Drugs had been used successfully to remove traumatic memories but neuroscientist Daniela Schiller wondered if a non-invasive behavioral technique could be used instead. In 2010 she used classical conditioning to train 65 people to fear a colored square by associating it with a shock. Twenty four hours later, the sight of the square alone induced a fearful reaction in all of them. Schiller then divided them into three groups and presented the squares to one group many more times without a shock. Because this extinction process began within ten minutes of having their memory reactivated, the members of this group completely forgot their fear. A second group, which did not begin the extinction process until six hours after they were shown the squares, did not lose their fear. The experiment demonstrated that memories can be changed behaviorally and that interfering with memory reconsolidation can be effective but is very time sensitive. As Schiller commented in Michael Specter’s profile of her in The New Yorker, her work led her to realize that memory is “what you are now, not what you think you were in the past. When you change the story you created, you change your life.”

Jake Brasch on alcoholism, mountains, Alzheimer’s, and THE RESERVOIR

Jake Brasch

Can brain exercises stave off dementia? On Monday, March 22, at 4:00 PM the EST/Sloan First Light Festival  presents the first public reading (free on Zoom) of THE RESERVOIR, Jake Brasch’s new play about a young writer who, struggling with alcoholism and memory loss, finds unexpected bonds with his quirky grandparents. The playwright has lots more to tell.

(Interview by Rich Kelley)

How did THE RESERVOIR come to be?

This play has been trying to fight its way out of me for years. When I got the commission, there was no turning back. 

I set out to explore Alzheimer’s Disease and alcoholism, diseases that have plagued my family for many moons. Along the way, I discovered I was writing a love letter to my grandparents. 

You describe Josh, your main character, as 22 years old in 2014-2015. “A queer, neurotic, lost soul. Dropout. Alcoholic. Wannabe writer. A white Jew with Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and Nebraskan roots.” Dare I ask how much of your play is autobiographical? Or would it be better to ask how much is not?

You got me!

Indeed, this is a very personal piece. Too personal? Maybe! There were definitely “WHY THE HELL AM I DOING THIS?!” moments. But for the most part, I found strength in writing into this painful chapter of my life. I’m a fundamentally different person than I was seven years ago and it felt empowering to remember that. 

That being said, the play is not strictly autobiographical. The constraints of the commission and the needs of the piece steered me away from my experience. I also took some creative license to protect my heart and my family. It feels important to be very clear about this: Josh’s story is not my story. A brilliant friend of mine recently wrote, “Most of us need a degree of artifice to say what we really think.” Paradoxically, I found that untethering Josh’s story from my own gave me permission to tell the truth. 

Much of the science in this play has to do with the concept of Cognitive Reserve and how it might be helpful in preventing or delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s. What kind of research did you do in writing this play? 

Figure illustrates how cognitive reserve develops over a lifespan. Figure courtesy of Frontiers of Psychology. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01814/full

I went on a deep dive into medical journal land. The more I read, the more I discovered how little we know about Alzheimer’s, specifically about how we might stave off its symptoms. There are a lot of misconceptions out there. People want to believe that all they have to do is play tennis, solve crossword puzzles, and memorize a list of our nation’s Vice Presidents, and all will be well. Yes, there are certain lifestyle factors that may delay the onset of Alzheimer’s, but there is no formula, no proven regimen, no sure way to protect yourself from the disease.

Bleak? Oh yeah. But also, ultimately, freeing. We simply cannot know what lies ahead. Josh’s revelation in the play mirrors what I discovered in my research: the best way to protect oneself against the onset of Alzheimer’s is to lead a present, full, joyous, active, inquisitive, open, and loving life. 

Have your grandparents had the chance to read your play? How did they react?

Oh, how I wish I could share this with them.

Jake and his grandmother

Both of my maternal grandparents passed away a few years ago after battles with Alzheimer’s. My paternal grandfather died this year of complications from COVID-19. 

My paternal grandmother is in a memory care facility. She’s mostly nonverbal at this point and doesn’t seem to recognize me. I miss her more than I can say. If she were still herself, I’m guessing she would request a paper copy of the play to litter with brilliant, scathing, and hilarious notes in red colored pencil. I’d like to think she’d be both horrified and proud.

What do you want your audience to understand about the nature of alcoholism and the current treatment options for coping with it?

Addiction is brutal. Being inside of the disease of alcoholism was the scariest experience of my life. I wanted so badly to get out from under it, but the harder I tried to escape, the worse it got. At some point, I had to accept defeat and get help. For anyone going through it, don’t try to go it alone. I’m here. We’re here. Recovery is the foundation my life has been built upon and I wouldn’t have it any other way. As impossible as it may seem, there’s a lighter life on the other side.

Jewish music and themes run through many of your plays. What has being a Jew meant to you?

Being a Jew has meant a lot to me. Much to unpack here!

My father, a fervent atheist, insisted I attend way too much religious school, which we can attribute to good old-fashioned Jewish guilt. I have at least an hour and a half of Hebrew chanting memorized, but I can’t say I know what any of it means. I know what we do, but I don’t know why! It’s just what we do! And I’ve come to love it! Plus great food and ancestral trauma! I think I’ll probably do the same thing to my poor children! 

In all seriousness, as I’ve become a spiritual person over the last few years, I’ve done a lot of thinking and writing about my Jewish roots. My faith today feels decidedly Jewish: I’m more concerned with what I do than what I believe.

You set your play in Colorado? Why Colorado?

Rocky Mountains outside Denver (Photo: Jake Brasch)

Because Colorado is awesome, bro! Party! Powder! Snowboarding! Sick!!!

I’m a proud Denverite, born and raised. The year I got sober, the mountains were there for me. Every time I looked west, I felt so delightfully small.  Mother Nature gave me breathing room and I’m forever grateful to her. I hope that’s in the play. 

Have you written any other science-related plays?

This is my first full-length with a science bent. I’ve written two other shorts for the EST/Sloan Project. One was about our national feral pig problem. The other just so happens to be debuting in the next couple of weeks on the brand new Youngblood Podcast (shameless plug)! It’s called Endogamy and it’s about Ashkenazi Judaism and genetics.  

What’s next for Jake Brasch?

Dinner! I’m making a chicken tagine with an olive and rosemary sourdough boule and a shaved fennel salad. After that, bedtime. And after that, here’s hoping for a lifetime of climbing mountains, telling stories, and basking in the sunlight of the spirit. 

The 2021 EST/Sloan First Light Festival runs from February 25 through March 29 and features readings of nine new plays. Readings open to the public are free and available on Zoom. The festival is made possible through the alliance between The Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, now in its twenty-third year.