THE SOUNDING
by Pamela Winfrey
directed by Mark Routhier
science expert Thomas Humphrey
In the mid 19th Century, laying the Trans-Atlantic cable between North America and Europe could change the rate at which information would be exchanged forever. The sheer scope of this endeavor, the huge amount of capital needed, and the clash of egos in the pure science of it, all weave together to create a compelling and moving drama.
Pamela Winfrey (Playwright) has been a playwright and performance artist for the past twenty five years. Ms. Winfrey’s plays and performance pieces have been seen at New Dramatists (NYC), Lilleth Women's Theater, and Mill Valley Center for the Performing Arts, Co Lab, People's Theater, Padua Hills Playwright's Festival (LA), The Lab, the Bay Area Playwrights’ Festival, and the Cedar Rapids Children's Theater (Home of Play Time Poppy, Happy Little Ear of Corn) Since 1991, she has been writing the books and lyrics for Mobius Operandi, an electro-acoustic sound sculpture ensemble and performance group. She is also one of the founding members. With Mobius she has created five years of inter-disciplinary large-scale performance works, including Exit Vacaville which took over an entire building to rave reviews. She's been a member of Actor's Equity and the Dramatist's Guild and has worked at Magic Theatre, the Minneapolis Children's Theater and the Bay Area Playwrights’ Festival. She has an undergraduate degree in Theatre and a Masters in Interdisciplinary Arts. In 2003, she received an Individual Artist award from the Marin Arts Council for her play, The Sounding. During Pamela Winfrey’s twenty five year tenure at the Exploratorium, a museum of science, art, and human perception, she has been the director of the performance program, the acting Director of the Arts, and is now a senior artist, a position that functions as part curator, part cultural elder, and part artist broker. Ms. Winfrey has written several articles for the Exploratorium Quarterly: on animal mimicry, a comparison study of spinning dancers and skaters, and on dolls as a reflection of culture.
Thomas Humphrey (Science Expert)is Senior Scientist at the Exploratorium. He has worked on dozens of exhibit development projects and was co-founder of the Theacher Institute. He designed the cours “Art and Phenomena” which he teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute, and he has worked as an independent artist.
THE MONKEY ROOM
by Kevin Fisher
directed by Mark Roberts
science experts Rose Quinones and Jonathan Fuchs
Five chimps in an AIDS vaccine lab have not developed the disease despite being surrounded it – but why? Ava, the new head of the lab, must solve the mystery before all of her funding is cut off. This provocative and comic drama explores the risks some scientists take to find the latest cures, and the lengths all people go to fight for the lives and the ideas they believe in.
Kevin Fisher's plays have been performed at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Naked Angels, Adobe Theatre and Westbeth Theatre in New York. His screenplay Under My Skin won the 1995 Independent Feature Project screenwriting award. His comic monologues have been performed in comedy clubs, published by Smith & Kraus, printed as New York Times Op-Ed pieces, produced together as the show Legal Alien, and are currently being recorded for radio. Kevin has a Masters Degree in Epidemiology, and presented a paper on HIV diagnosis at the 2004 International AIDS Conference in Bangkok.
Rose Quinones (Science Expert) is a Physician’s Assistant with more than 20 years of clinical experience in community and public health. Her work has focused on women’s health, LGBT health, and domestic violence, as well as STD and HIV care and research. She has been conducting preventitive HIV vaccine studies as Clinical coordinator in the HIV Research Section at the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s AIDS Office for over five years. She is a graduated of the FNP/PA Program at UC Davis.
Jonathan Fuchs (Science Expert) Dr. Jonathan Fuchs is the Director of Vaccine Studies in the HIV Research Section of the AIDS Office for the San Francisco Department of Public Health. He is on the faculty at UCSF Medical School and is presently working on a web-based training program for clinical site site staff focusing on vaccine trials and sponsored by the National Institues of Health and the HIV Vaccine Trial Netowkr. He is an internist with a Master’s Degree in Public Health from Columbia University, and is a graduate of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School-UMDNJ.
THE SEQUENCE
by Paul Mullin
directed by Delia MacDougall
science expert Richard Rhodes
Young science reporter Ruth has found the story of her career: a hotshot scientist challenges the government to see who can become the first to map the entire human genome. The face-off throws the genetic world into a tailspin, as Ruth struggles to capture the truth behind the hype of cutting edge genetics and its stunning impact on the world.
Paul Mullin’s plays have been produced in cities across the United States including Washington DC, Louisville, Baltimore, New York, and Los Angeles. Louis Slotin Sonata, his play about a Los Alamos scientist who accidentally dosed himself with a critical amount of radiation, received the LA Drama Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Play and went on to a successful off-Broadway production at Ensemble Studio Theatre. The play also received special invitation readings at both the Santa Barbara Nuclear Peace Foundation and the Los Alamos National Laboratories. More recently his The Good Ship Manhattan and An American Book of the — The Game Show premiered in Los Angeles. He also wrote and starred in the independent feature film Hitting The Ground, which won the Gold Prize at the Houston WorldFest and later played in rotation on the Sundance Channel. Paul currently lives in Seattle with his wife and son.
Richard Rhodes (Science Expert) is the author of twenty books, including The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which won a Pulitzer Prize, and Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. He has received grants from the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He is an affiliate of the Center for Internaitonal Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and has been a visiting scholar at both Harvard and MIT.