[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"2341","attributes":{"alt":"The 2013 Fall Artist Cultivation Event panelists","class":"media-image","height":"2016","style":"width: 800px; height: 320px;","title":"From left: Heather Berlin, Deb Laufer, Ivan Oransky, Jonathan Weiner, William Carden","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"5120"}}]]
Over the past 15 years The Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Project has awarded playwrights grants totaling more than one million dollars. The EST/Sloan Project mission: “to stimulate artists to create credible and compelling work exploring the worlds of science and technology and to challenge existing stereotypes of scientists and engineers in the popular imagination.”
Every year EST/Sloan kicks off its new season with the Fall Artist Cultivation Event. This lively event brings together a panel of scientists, science writers and playwrights for a far-ranging and free-wheeling discussion with prospective playwrights about “what could make a great play about science.” The 2013 Fall Artist Cultivation Event will take place at EST on Monday, October 21 at 7 PM.
This year's panelists include:
- Neuroscientist Heather Berlin, currently an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and a Visiting Scholar at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. Berlin is also a presenter on the international Discovery Channel Series "Superhuman Showdown, a frequent commentator on the History Channel, and has appeared on StarTalk Radio with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
- Playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer, author of End Days (EST/Sloan 2009 Mainstage production and awarded The ATCA Steinberg citation) , Sirens, Leveling Up, Out of Sterno, and many other plays. Laufer is also the recipient of the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award and the Lilly Award.
- Dr. Ivan Oransky, vice president and global editorial director of MedPage Today, co-founder of Retraction Watch, and founder of Embargo Watch. Oransky also teaches medical journalism at New York University’s Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program.
- Journalist and author Jonathan Weiner, winner of the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for The Beak of the Finch, and also author of Long for This World, His Brother’s Keeper: A Story from the Edge of Medicine, and Time, Love, Memory.
The discussion will be moderated by William Carden, Artistic Director of The Ensemble Studio Theatre.
Click here to read a blog post with excerpted quotes from last year's event. You can also watch some entertaining video clips of the event here.