Ensemble Studio Theatre & The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Announce 20th Anniversary Artist Cultivation Panel

Ensemble Studio Theatre, along with The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (Doron Weber, Vice-President, Programs), announced today the 2018 Fall Artist Cultivation Event, marking the 20th anniversary of the EST/Sloan Project, to take place on Monday, November 19 at 8pm with a reception beginning at 7:30pm.

Joining Sloan Program Director Doron Weber will be playwrights Cassandra Medley (Relativity; Coming Up for Air), Tony Award nominee Lucas Hnath (A Doll's House, Part 2; Issac's Eye), Charly Evon Simpson (Behind the Sheet; Jump), and Anna Ziegler (Photograph 51; Boy), all of whom have had (or will soon have) EST/Sloan Mainstage productions. They will be joined by EST/Sloan's three distinguished scientist/consultants, Gabriel Cwilich, Stuart Firestein and Darcy Kelley, to discuss "what makes a great play about science?" The event is free, and any playwright interested in developing a play about science or technology is encouraged to attend to hear a free-wheeling and far-ranging discussion about science, storytelling, and what makes plays work.

For the past 20 years, the mission of The Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project (EST/Sloan Project, for short) has been "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." Over that time the EST/Sloan Project has awarded more than $3 million in grants to some 300 playwrights and theatre companies. More than 150 productions of EST/Sloan-developed plays have been mounted nationwide.

The EST/Sloan season will continue in 2019 with The First Light Festival, a series of readings and workshops that showcase plays in development. This season's festival will begin in January 2019 and will include the 2019 EST/Sloan Mainstage Production, Behind the Sheet by Charly Evon Simpson, which will begin previews on January 9 and run through February 3.

Previous mainstage productions have included 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.

The Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST), founded by Curt Dempster in 1968, has been under the artistic direction of William Carden since 2007. Now celebrating its 50th year, 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. In doing so, they engage and challenge audiences in New York City and across the country. As a collaborative community committed to this process, EST discovers and nurtures new voices while supporting artists throughout their creative lives.

EST's primary programs include Youngblood, a collective of emerging professional playwrights under the age of 30; 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.

EST was granted a special Drama Desk award in 2015 for its "unwavering commitment to producing new works". After being developed at EST, Robert Askins' Hand to God went on to West End and Broadway runs, earned five Tony nominations, and became the most produced play in the country for the 2016-17 theatrical season. This year, Martyna Majok was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Cost of Living, a play which originated during her time in Youngblood, with a later version produced in the Marathon of One-Act Plays.

The New York based Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, founded in 1934, makes grants for original research and education in science, technology, and economic performance. 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 nearly two decades, 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 Lucy Kirkwood's Mosquitoes, which recently sold out at the National Theatre in London, Leigh Fondakowski's Spill, Nick Payne's Constellations, a Broadway hit staring Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson, Nell Benjamin's The Explorer's Club, Lucas Hnath's Isaac's Eye, and Anna Ziegler's Photograph 51, a 2015 prize-winner in London's West End starring Nicole Kidman.

The Foundation's nationwide film program has partnered with some of the top film schools in the country and established annual awards in screenwriting and film production, along with an annual best-of-the best Student Grand Jury Prize. The program has given early recognition to stand-out films such as Searching, The Martian, and Hidden Figures and helped develop such film projects as Shawn Snyder's To Dust, Morten Tyldum's The Imitation Game, and Matthew Brown's The Man Who Knew Infinity. The Foundation has also supported theatrical documentaries such as Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story.

The book program has supported over 100 authors, including Margot Lee Shetterly 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 that became the highest grossing Oscar-nominated film of 2017 and continues to have a wide-ranging cultural impact. The television program includes series such as American Experience and NOVA. Podcasts like RadioLab and Planet Money are supported through the radio program. The new media program funds a variety of diverse projects, most recently "Programmed: Rules, Codes, and Choreographies in Art" a new art and technology exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art .

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