Ensemble Studio Theatre & the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Announce the 2022 First Light Festival

Ensemble Studio Theatre along with The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation have announced the lineup for the 2022 First Light Festival, part of the EST/Sloan Project to develop plays exploring science and technology.

The 2022 First Light Festival will run from March 28 - April 28, 2022. All presentations are free and will be held at Ensemble Studio Theatre (545 W. 52nd St., 2nd Floor), with the exception of Good Hair, which will be at Studios 797 (797 8th Ave, Studio #2). Reservations are required and can be made at EnsembleStudioTheatre.org/FirstLight.

Since 1998, the EST/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project has developed hundreds of new plays that question and broaden the view of science in the popular imagination. Each play's life onstage begins with the First Light Festival, an annual presentation of new readings, workshops, and productions. A 2020 EST/Sloan Project First Light Festival presentation, what you are now written by Sam Chanse and directed by Steve Cosson, began performances at EST on March 10, 2022, and will run through April 3, 2022. what you are now is presented by EST, EST/Sloan Project and The Civilians.

The 2022 First Light Festival includes public presentations of the following works-in-progress:

Circumstances Affecting the Heat of the Sun's Rays

By Amanda Quaid

Monday March 28 at 2pm

A story about amateur scientist Eunice Foote, one big discovery, scientific legacy, and ever-rising levels of carbon dioxide.

Good Hair

By Phaedra Michelle Scott

Monday April 4 at 2pm

Told through three entangled timelines, Good Hair weaves together the lives of women and the central question: Does the cost of beauty outweigh the proof of science?

Beyond Words

By Laura Maria Censabella

Thursday April 7 at 1pm

Dr. Irene Pepperberg studies the cognitive and communicative abilities of Grey parrots in this offbeat and unexpected 30-year love story between scientist and research subject. What price does a woman scientist pay in trying to talk with the animals?

The Moderate

By Ken Urban

Monday April 11 at 7pm

Unemployed during a pandemic, and estranged from his wife and son, Frank accepts a job as a content moderator for the world's largest social media company. The job takes a heavy toll on Frank until he realizes he might have the power to save both a stranger and himself.

Las Borinqueñas

By Nelson Diaz-Marcano

Thursday April 14 at 3pm

Las Borinqueñas is the story of the first birth control pill mass trial and the Puerto Rican women that served as tribute for the miracle to occur.

The Reservoir

By Jake Brasch

Thursday April 28 at 7pm

A lost, queer, neurotic mess of a twenty-something moves home to get sober. Struggling with memory loss, he finds unlikely allies in his four grandparents.

In addition, the 2022 First Light Festival will include the following plays, presented by invitation only:

Favaloro: A Heart in Pieces

By Julián Mesri

A musical journey about Argentine surgeon Rene Favaloro, a country doctor in the Pampas who went on to revolutionize heart bypass surgery at Cleveland Clinic, and his tragic downfall trying to save his foundation amidst Argentina's economic crisis.

Love Antics and Dances

By Noah Brody, Marshall Hagins & Brad Moranz

Dr. Samantha Williams is an ornithologist working as a post doc in Dr. Mackenzie's lab. Ideas bubble up inside her - radical, slightly feminist ideas about evolution. When Dr. Mackenzie derails her career because he disagrees with her scientific ideas, Sam drops off the grid and moves to Papua New Guinea where she finds a rag-tag group of fellow bird scientists who become her new family. Just as Sam is discovering the freedom to pursue ideas that give her pleasure, Mackenzie shows up to make a nature documentary, and Sam must struggle to find the courage to stand up and describe the physical world as she knows it - to be a scientist.

Throughout the First Light Festival, EST is advocating for the non-profit organization Black Girls Do STEM and encourages its audiences with the means to do so to support them with a financial gift.

Black Girls Do STEM is a diversifying innovation, empowering Black girls to achieve equitable STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) representation. By creating a culturally unique learning space, we give room for cognitive and mental resilience. This lends to development of a STEM mindset and belief in their STEM capability, while placing positive role models who look like them right in their path. Through our core values of scholarship, training, empowerment (equity), and mentorship, we trigger curiosity in the minds of Black girls building confidence, skills, and the future STEM workforce. Please visit bgdstem.com to learn more and support them today.

ABOUT Ensemble Studio Theatre

The Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST), founded by Curt Dempster in 1968, has been under the artistic direction of William Carden since 2007. In over 50 years, EST has developed thousands of new American plays and has grown into a company of over 600 actors, directors, playwrights, and designers.

EST's mission is to develop and produce original, provocative, and authentic new work. A dynamic community committed to a collaborative process, EST is dedicated to inclusion across all aspects of identity and perspective, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, sexuality, physical or mental ability, physical or mental health, and recovery while acknowledging and working to end systemic marginalization and oppression at all levels of its organization. EST discovers and nurtures new voices and supports artists throughout their creative lives. This extraordinary support and commitment to inclusivity are essential to yield extraordinary work.

EST's primary programs include Youngblood, a collective of emerging professional playwrights; the EST/Sloan Project, a partnership that commissions, develops, and produces new works about science and technology; and the biennial Marathon of One-Act Plays, a landmark New York theatre festival since 1977.

ABOUT THE EST/ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY PROJECT

The EST/Sloan Project (Graeme Gillis, Program Director; Linsay Firman, Associate Director) is designed to stimulate artists to create credible and compelling new theatrical works that explore the worlds of science, technology, and economics in order to challenge existing stereotypes of scientists and engineers in popular culture. Since its inception in 1998, the EST/Sloan Project has commissioned, developed, and produced the work of more than 300 playwrights, choreographers, composers, and theatre companies. Recent notable plays include what you are now by Sam Chanse, Behind the Sheet by Charly Evon Simpson, Isaac's Eye by Lucas Hnath, Fast Company by Carla Ching, and Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler.

ABOUT THE ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a New York-based, philanthropic, not-for-profit institution that makes grants in three areas: research in science, technology, and economics; equality and diversity of scientific institutions; and public engagement with science. Sloan's program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology, directed by Doron Weber, supports books, radio, film, television, theater, and new media to reach a wide, non-specialized audience.

Over two decades of support, the Foundation's pioneering theater program, begun with a 1997 grant to Ensemble Studio Theatre for Arthur Giron's play about the Wright Brothers, Flight, has helped usher in the science play as a regular part of the theater canon. Commissioning close to 20 new plays each year through its two flagship partners, EST and Manhattan Theatre Club-and working with the National Theater in London and Playwrights Horizons in New York, among others-the Foundation has made "a Sloan" a coveted commission for any playwright embarking on a new play with a science and technology theme or character. Beginning with such renowned science plays as Proof, Copenhagen, and Alan Alda's QED, more recent grants have supported Bess Wohl's Continuity, directed by Tony Award winner Rachel Chavkin; Charly Evon Simpson's New York Times Critics' Pick Behind the Sheet; Chiara Atik's Bump; Lucy Kirkwood's Mosquitoes; Leigh Fondakowski's Spill; Nick Payne's Constellations; Nell Benjamin's The Explorer's Club; Lucas Hnath's Isaac's Eye; and Anna Ziegler's Photograph 51. The Foundation has also supported a 32-play radio series through L.A. Theatre Works.

Sloan also has a nationwide film program that includes support of twelve film schools, and screenplay development programs with The Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute, SFFILM, Film Independent, the Black List, the Athena Film Festival, and the North Fork TV Festival. It has helped develop and distribute over 30 feature films including Tesla, Radium Girls, Adventures of a Mathematician, One Man Dies a Million Time, To Dust, The Sound of Silence, The Catcher Was a Spy, The Imitation Game, The Man Who Knew Infinity, Operator, and Experimenter. The Foundation has also supported theatrical documentaries such as The Father of Cyborgs, Picture a Scientist, Coded Bias, In Silico, Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, Particle Fever, and Jacques Perrin's Oceans. The Foundation's book program includes early support for Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, the best-selling book which became the Oscar-nominated film and a social and cultural milestone. For more information, visit www.sloan.org or follow @SloanPublic on Twitter and Facebook.

BIOS

JAKE BRASCH (he/they) is a Queer + Jewish + Coloradan + Playwright + Composer + Performer + Clown. Proud member of Ensemble Studio Theatre's Youngblood, the 2021-2022 Art House INKubator cohort, The Farm Theater's Development Workshop, and The LAByrinth Intensive Ensemble. Jake's work has been developed by The New Ohio, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Farm Theater, The Tank, Dixon Place, Curious Theatre Company, DSA at the Edinburgh Fringe, The 14th St Y, Planet Connections, and The New Studio on Broadway at NYU. Currently under commission from EST/Sloan Project and The Farm Theater's College Collaboration Project. As a composer, Jake has scored several films, plays, and podcasts

Noah Brody is an actor, director, teacher, writer, and co-artistic director of Fiasco Theater. For Fiasco he has directed Merrily We Roll Along and co-directed The Imaginary Invalid, Into the Woods, Measure for Measure, Twelfth Night and Cymbeline. His work has been seen at the Roundabout Theatre, Theatre for a New Audience, Classic Stage Company, New Victory Theatre, McCarter Theatre, The Folger Theatre, The Old Globe, the Long Wharf, and London's Menier Chocolate Factory among others. With collaborators Jessie Austrian and the Kilbanes, Noah is the recipient of Theatre Latte Da's NEXT GENERATION Commission for the creation of an original musical, and, of course, an EST/Sloan commission with Marshall Hagins.

Laura Maria Censabella's play Paradise (IRNE Award Best New Play, Elliott Norton Nomination Outstanding New Script, Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Science Foundation Commission) made its sold-out U.S. west coast premiere in L.A. at The Odyssey Theatre (Viola Davis and Julius Tennon, producers) and premiered on the east coast at Underground Railroad/Central Square Theater in Cambridge. She then wrote the screenplay for Vicangelo Films and JuVee Productions and an audio podcast version of the play opened LATW's 2021-22 season. Ms. Censabella is the recipient of the $10,000 Saroyan/Paul Human Rights Playwriting Prize for her play Carla Cooks The War, three grants in Playwriting and Screenwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and two Daytime Emmy Awards. Other plays and musicals have been developed or produced at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays, the Women's Project and Productions, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Portland Stage, the New Harmony Project, Gulfshore Playhouse, The Working Theatre, Luna Stage, Passage Theatre and Urban Stages, among others. She directs the Ensemble Studio Theatre Playwrights Unit and teaches at The New School, School of Drama where she received the Distinguished University Wide Teaching Award. She is a graduate of Yale where she studied with Wole Soyinka, Nikos Psacharopoulos, Michael Roemer, Anthony Davis and Henry Louis Gates, and is a proud member of HONOR ROLL! an action and advocacy group of women+ playwrights over 40.

NELSON DIAZ-MARCANO is a Puerto Rican NYC-based theater maker, advocate, and community leader.

DR. Marshall Hagins danced on Broadway (Mame) and in several national tours (A Chorus Line, Oklahoma, Grease) before earning a BS in physical therapy and PhD in biomechanics from New York University. Dr. Hagins is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at Long Island University and a Senior Research Associate at Harkness Center for Dance Injuries in Manhattan. Dr. Hagins has worked as a physical therapist for New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and the Mark Morris Dance Group. He has published over 40 papers in peer reviewed journals and has received research funding from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Hagins is a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.

JULIÁN MESRI is a New York-based Argentinean-American composer and writer who makes multilingual plays and musicals in the US and around the world. He is a current member of The Public Theater Emerging Writers Group and received a 2020-2021 EST/Sloan Commission. Recent productions include Telo (O'Neill Finalist), Immersion (Ingenio Festival at Milagro Theater, Columbia/Roundabout Finalist, BAPF Semi-Finalist), and a Buenos Aires run of his play The Gauchos Americanos (Teatro Extranjero). Other work includes music directing/arranging Songs About Trains with Radical Evolution, composing music for The Public Theater Mobile Unit presentation of Pablo Neruda's Romeo y Julieta, and a new commissioned musical for young audiences, The Adventures of Snow White, to tour China in 2021. Mesri has been an Emerging Artist of Color Fellow at NYTW, a Van Lier fellow at Repertorio Español, and the recipient of an ASCAP Scholarship. His adaptation of Fuenteovejuna received the HOLA Outstanding production award. He has also translated dramatic works for the Lark US/Mexico Exchange and PEN World Voices. He received his MFA from Columbia University.

Brad Moranz performed on Broadway in Singin' in the Rain (Cosmo), A Day in Hollywood (Groucho), Off Broadway in Little Shop of Horrors (Seymour), and in the National tours of Me and My Girl (U/S Gerald), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (suitor) and A Chorus Line (Zach). He has directed numerous regional productions of musicals (Annie, Guys and Dolls, I Do I Do, Nunsense, Unsinkable Molly Brown, Kiss Me Kate, Secret Garden-to name a few). Along with his wife Jennifer, he has choreographed for film and TV including "The Righteous Gemstones," Radioland Murders (Academy Award nomination), The Road to Wellville, "Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" (George Lucas), and more. Currently, (again with his wife!), he writes, directs, choreographs and produces musical variety shows in Charleston, SC.

Amanda Quaid's plays include The Clam (Playing on Air, a winner of the 2019 James Stevenson Prize), The Extinctionist (EST Marathon of One-Act Plays), and Echo and Narcissus (Red Bull Short New Play Festival). Libretto: The Extinctionist (upcoming at Heartbeat Opera). Screenplay: English. Other works have been read and developed by Colt Coeur, Culture Project, HB Playwrights, and the National Arts Club. Amanda also directed and animated an award-winning stop-motion short film called Toys, which was screened across North America as part of LUNAFEST.

PHAEDRA MICHELLE SCOTT is a playwright and screenwriter based in New York City. She is currently a member of Youngblood with Ensemble Studio Theatre. Her recent work includes the Colt Coeur podcast Pleasure Machine. Her plays included Diaspora! (commissioned by SpeakEasy Stage), Good Hair (recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant). She is a past resident at SPACE on Ryder Farm for her play Plantation Black, and former member of Pipeline Theatre Company's PlayLab. She is currently in development with CBS/Showtime for an upcoming television show. She is a crocheter, horror fan and obscure history enthusiast. She/Her/Hers. www.phaedrascott.com

Ken Urban is a playwright and screenwriter. His plays include A Guide For The Homesick (Huntington Theatre Company, London's West End), The Remains (Studio Theatre), Sense Of An Ending (59E59 Theaters, London's Theatre503), Nibbler (The Amoralists and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), The Correspondent (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), The Awake (59E59 Theaters, First Floor Theater), and The Happy Sad (Summer Play Festival @ The Public Theater). Awards include Weissberger Playwriting Award, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Independent Reviewers of New England's Award for Best New Script, Headlands Artist Residency, Dramatist Guild Fellowship, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellowship, and MacDowell Colony Fellowships. He is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and affiliated writer at the Playwrights' Center. Ken wrote the screenplay for the feature-film adaptation of The Happy Sad, directed by Rodney Evans. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service. He leads the band Occurrence and their latest album I Have So Much Love To Give dropped last August. The band is currently finishing a new double album called Slow Violence. Ken teaches dramatic writing at MIT. He taught writing at Harvard University, Princeton University, Tufts University, and Davidson College. His first TV pilot "The Art of Listening" was optioned by Madison Wells Media. Ken went to Bucknell University to study Chemical Engineering and left with a degree in English and a writing habit. He earned a Ph.D. in English from Rutgers University. He lives in Washington Heights with his partner Johnny.

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