Science & Theatre
FROM THE LAB TO THE STAGE TO THE AUDIENCE
Modern science has dramatically changed the world around us and is affecting all our lives in many ways. We hear about global warming, gene therapy, stem-cell research, or nanotechnology every day. Moreover, we begin to realize that beyond dealing with intriguing discoveries and technical problems, scientific progress has social and ethical implications that should be addressed by our entire society. In contemporary theatre this is reflected by an increasing number of 'science plays'. Originally inspired by disastrous consequences of the atomic bomb developed by physicists, these plays now increasingly focus on issues related to modern biomedicine.
What are the social and ethical consequences of current scientific research? Are scientists responsible for these? How does public policy influence science? What does really happen behind the doors of research labs with scientists driven by lust for knowledge as much as for the Nobel Prize?
SCIENCE & THEATRE is a transdisciplinary cooperative project at the interface between science and art. It combines ethical and social aspects of the natural sciences - as they are presented during young scholars' studies - with the staging of science plays and science communication in theatre.
Partners in this project are the English Theatre Berlin and Prof. Dr. Regine Hengge from the Institute of Biology at the Freie Universität Berlin.
Beginning in the 2010/2011 theatre season, English Theatre Berlin presents productions dealing with the topic of science. In preparing these, the director, dramaturgist and actors, for whom scientific issues are fresh territory, cooperate with scientists and advanced science students, who step out of the lab to explore both potential social and ethical aspects of their work and the stage as an equally new medium for science communication. In a seminar which constitutes the first phase of this endeavour, Master’s and doctoral students from the Biology Institute are introduced to ethical and social aspects of science and the ethical conventions that scientific research should follow. The director and the actors can also participate in these seminars. In the second phase, scientists and students work along with the director, the dramaturgist, and the actors in preparing the actual plays; they research the scientific background of the scripts and share their experiences and skills with the theatre people. The final phase will be the performance, part of the official repertoire of the English Theatre Berlin, as a new means of science communication via the medium of theatre.
A framework of films, readings, lectures and discussions with renowned scientists, members of the arts community and politicians will supplement the plays.
In a prelude phase in the spring of 2010, the public was introduced to the project with a production of Caryl Churchill´s play A NUMBER dealing with social implications of human cloning, which, after the cloning of ‘Dolly‘ the sheep and numerous other animals since then no longer seems to belong to the realm of science fiction. Read more HERE.
The play chosen for PART 2 February 2011 was AN EXPERIMENT WITH AN AIR PUMP by Shelagh Stephenson, dealing with prenatal diagnostics, women’s roles in science, and humans as research subjects. Read more HERE.PART 3 included a new step: DESIGNER GENES, a project on SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY developed by three student groups from three different Berlin schools (Heinrich-Schliemann-Oberschule in Prenzlauer Berg, Leibniz-Oberschule in Kreuzberg, and Humboldt-Oberschule in Tegel) . Read more HERE. The core project of PART 3 was a production of Anna Ziegler´s play PHOTOGRAPH 51, dealing with the discovery of the DNA structure and women in science. Read more HERE.
Prof. Dr. Regine Hengge has headed the Freie Universität’s Microbiology Unit since 1998. She received numerous scientific awards, among them the Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz-Prize from the DFG (1998), the Landesforschungspreis Baden-Württemberg (1996) and an ERC Advanced Investigator Grant (2010). She is an elected member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, and the European Organisation for Molecular Biology (EMBO).
