The Sloan Initiative
In November 2004, Magic Theatre launched the Magic Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation New Science and Technology Plays Initiative (the “Sloan Initiative”), a three year program continuing and expanding the efforts sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Sloan Initiative is designed to foster relationships between the scientific and artistic communities, focusing on Northern California and the Western United States. The Sloan Initiative commissions, develops, and produces plays exploring the worlds of science and technology, and challenges stereotypes propagated in the public consciousness mostly by images in the media. The Sloan Initiative is made possible through a three year grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation totaling $396,000.
The Sloan Initiative programs include:
- Mounting a world premiere production of a new play
- Playwright commissions, both through the Magic Theatre and through our Western United States partner theatres
- Presentations, including producing theatrical pieces for and participating in scientific conferences, hosting colloquiums, and organizing developmental and public readings.
Since the Sloan Initiative was launched in fall of ‘04, one hundred twenty four artists and scientists have participated in one of the seven new Sloan programs designed to bring together the talents and passions of emerging and established theatre artists with compelling scientific minds and share their collaborations with the larger community.
2007-2008 Season
GYROBALL
by Tim Bauer
Science Advisor: TBA
A big league pitcher is on the verge of retiring. Out of nowhere, he starts striking out a good deal of his opponents. Is he juicing? Has he been visited by Cy Young? No. He has teamed up with a computer scientist and a biomechanics scientists and they have created an unhittable pitch—the gyroball—that travels like a spiraling bullet, then drops at the last moment.
TRANQUILITY
by Toni Press-Coffman
Science Advisor: TBA
A physicist moves his family from California to Washington, DC to work with people who are conducting a war he opposes. Driven by his desire to use his knowledge as a polymer science engineer to save the lives of soldiers who donot have body or vehicle armor capable of protecting them, he must handle the resistance of his family who resent being moved from one coast to the other, the ridicule of politically like-minded colleagues who consider him a sell-out, and the suspicions of the politicians and scientists who support the war but do not completely trust him.
Science On Stage Series
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
by Stephen R. Culp
directed by Jimmy Bohr
Scientists in Antarctica are converting into religious fanatics. A man searches for his sister in the seedy clubs of Istanbul. An anti-globalization activist is tortured in a dark CIA prison. The conspiracy, the mind control, the fate of mankind…it all drifts together like the continents. Can a 14-year old boy in California have the answers to everything?
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
by David Ford
directed by Mark Routhier
Joan was meant for a career in the study of the brain. But have the two strongest influences in her life – her wild, anachronistic, mind-expanding friend and her acclaimed neuroscientist godfather – prepared her for her godfather’s extremely difficult battle with brain cancer?
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
by Ira Hauptman
directed by Barbara Oliver
In this comedy, Galileo is tried for heresy again – this time in the afterlife. Confronted by two Inquisition-era Cardinals, the great scientist is joined by two cloistered daughters and an opportunistic son who (for their two reasons) urge him to abandon his conviction that the Earth revolves around the sun.
All performances at the Exploratorium at the Palace of Fine Arts (3601 Lyon St, SF). Admission is free to Magic subscribers and Exploratorium members, or with museum admission ($10 at the door).
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Loretta Greco, Artistic Director | David Jobin, Managing Director