Festival Name: First Light
Link to site: https://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org/firstlight/
Host: Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST)
Festival Type: Science Play Festival
Festival Dates: Varies by year
Overview of Festival: The Ensemble Studio Theatre has partnered with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project to create a platform for new science-themed plays. Starting in 1998, the First Light festival has presented readings, workshops, and full productions of new works. Named after an astronomy term, First Light refers to the first light you see through a telescope when you look into the universe.
Sponsors and Partners: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project
Festival Team:
Graeme Grillis – Associate Artistic Director of EST, Program Director of EST/Sloan
Linsay Firman – Director of Play Development of EST, Associate Director of EST/Sloan
First Festival Date: 1998
Festival History: In 1998 EST began its ongoing relationship with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation the EST/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Project, for the commissioning, development and production of new science-themed plays, which has become a pillar of the organization’s work and progress, distributing over $1 million in new play commissions and production grants to playwrights and theatres across the USA.
(Festival History provided by the Ensemble Studio Theatre website)
2020 Season
Play Performed: Hello, World
Playwright: Margot Connolly
Genres: Drama
Synopsis: In a coding competition, two teams of teenage girls need to create an app that changes the world for the better – but who decides which app and cause is most worthy?
(Synopsis provided by Ensemble Studio Theatre’s website)
Discipline: Computer Science
Funders: EST/Sloan Project
Play Performed: One Small Step for Brunch, One Giant Leap for Brunchkind
Playwright: Jake Brasch, AJ Clauss, Yilong Liu, Andrew Massey, and Meagan Chan Meinero
Synopsis: A collection of short plays that the audience can enjoy over brunch.
Discipline (s): Technology
Funders: EST/Youngblood
Play Performed: With Fellowship
Playwright: Amanda Keating
Genres: Drama
Synopsis: Bouncing from a present-day German lab where a team of women scientists study the fossilized dental plaque of medieval monastics to a German scriptorium in the 11th century, with fellowship is a play about loneliness and loss, asking how history defines science, art, and faith.
(Synopsis provided by Ensemble Studio Theatre’s website)
Discipline: Archeology
Funders: EST/Sloan Project
Play Performed: Miss Mitchell
Playwright: Kristin Slaney & The Lobbyists
Genres: Drama
Synopsis: Miss Mitchell is a musical about Maria Mitchell, the first female professional astronomer in America, and an influential figure in women’s education on the island of Nantucket.
(Synopsis provided by Ensemble Studio Theatre’s website)
Discipline: Astronomy
Funders:EST/Sloan Project
Play Performed: Have You Met Jane Goodall & Her Mother?
Playwright: Mechael Walek
Genres: Drama
Synopsis: The Tanzanian government allowed Jane Goodall to study chimpanzees in the wild under one condition – she must bring a chaperone. So, Jane invited her mother.
(Synopsis provided by Ensemble Studio Theatre’s website)
Discipline: Anthropology
Funders: EST/Sloan Project, EST/Youngblood
Play Performed: The Letters of Galileo’s Daughter
Playwright: Jessica Dickey
Genres: Drama
Synopsis: A playwright searches for the surviving letters between Galileo and his eldest daughter. Expanding across time, this story is an exploration of faith, forgiveness, and the cost of heeding one’s truth
(Synopsis provided by Ensemble Studio Theatre’s website)
Discipline: Astronomy
Funders: EST/Sloan Project
Play Performed: Freeplay
Playwright: Justice Hehir, with dramaturg Emilie Pass
Genres: Drama
Synopsis: FreePlay is a feminist sex toy company, popular for its deconstructed take on the dildo. A story about engineering, female friendships, dildos, and the people who make them.
(Synopsis provided by Ensemble Studio Theatre’s website)
Discipline: Technology
Funders: EST/Sloan Project
Play Performed: Smart
Playwright: Mary Elizabeth Hamilton
Genres: Drama
Synopsis: Smart explores how much our identity is shaped by habits, and what happens when our possessions start responding to the information of our daily lives.
(Synopsis provided by Ensemble Studio Theatre’s website)
Discipline: Sociology
Funders: EST/Sloan Project
Play Performed: What You Are Now
Playwright: Same Chanse, developed with The Civilians
Genres: Drama
Synopsis: The daughter of a trauma survivor, Pia is driven by the desire to help free her mother from paralyzing fear memories – that’s why she became a neuroscientist. But the unexpected return of an old acquaintance triggers a storm of memory, forcing Pia to tangle with her own fears and paralysis, and pushing her to question deeply-held beliefs about her own past. How can changing our memories about who we were then change who we are now?
(Synopsis provided by Ensemble Studio Theatre’s website)
Discipline: Neuroscience
Funders: EST/Sloan Project
Play Performed: Offshore Clinical Trials
Playwright: Mona Pirnot
Genres: Drama
Synopsis: At a beach house in the Caribbean, subjects come and go to take part in a trial testing the therapeutic value of one doctor’s homemade herpes vaccine.
(Synopsis provided by Ensemble Studio Theatre’s website)
Discipline: Medicine
Funders: EST/Sloan Project, EST/Youngblood
Previous Seasons Shows:
2018/2019 Season:
Sizzle Sizzle Fly by Susan Bernfield
Golden Shield by Anchuli Felicia King
World Avoided byAndrea Lepcio
The Biology of the Surface by Dominic Taylor
Another Revolution by Jacqueline Bircher Amid
Ghosts by Chad Beckim
Have you met Jane Goodall & Her Mother by Machael Walk
The Space Race by Marc Acito
What Looks Like Pretty by Elizabeth Gregory Wilder
2017/2018 Season:
Spill by Leigh Fondakowski
The Youngblood Science Brunch
Midwife/Mechanic by Chiara Atik
Sizzle Sizzle Fly, by Susan Bernfield
The Radio Boys, by Joe Gilford
World Avoided by Andrea Lepcio
Damage Ctrl by Ryan Fogarty
Motion Picture Color Fade by Patrick Link
Herschel: Portrait of a Killer by Dustin H. Chinn
The Flamingos by Ryan Dowler
Coming Up for Air byCassandra Medley
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One’s Reason and Seeking the Truth in
Sciences by Jerry Lieblich
What You Are Now by Sam Chanse
2016/2017 Season:
Sizzle Sizzle Fly by Susan Bernfield
The Radio Boys by Joe Gilford
World Avoided by Andrea Lepcio
Damage Ctrl by Ryan Fogarty
Motion Picture Color Fade by Patrick Link
Herschel: Portrait of a Killer by Dustin H. China
The Flamingos by Ryan Dowler
Coming up for Air by Cassandra Medley
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One’s Reason and Seeking the Truth in Sciences by Jerry Lieblich
What You Are Now by Sam Chanse
Midwife/Mechanic by Chiara Atik
The Youngblood Science Brunch
2015/2016 Season:
Tectonic Mélange by Deborah Yarchun
Things That Cannot Take Care of Themselves by Sinead Daly
Maria Sibylla by Arlene Hutton
The Devil’s Salt by France-Luce Benson
Falling Down the Stairs by Tala Manassah and Mona Mansour
Pugwash by Vern Thiessen
Truth Values by Gioia De Cari
Youngblood Science Brunch
2014/2015 Season:
Youngblood Science Brunch
Spill by Leigh Fondakowski
The Firebirds Take the Field by Lynn Rosen
Franklinland by Lloyd Suh
Boy by Anna Ziegler
The Nature of Things by Michael Barakiva
Paradise by Laura Maria Censabella
The Elementary Space Time Show: A Musical by César Alvarez
The Mermaid Hour by David Valdes Greenwood
Where Ever It May Be: A Musical by Matt Schatz
Ruth by Alexander Borinsky
Chatterbots by Olivia Dufault
2013/2014 Season:
Fast Company by Carlia Ching
Please Continue by Frank Basloe
The Gum Play by Lucas Kavner
Life on Paper by Kenneth Lin
Binary (Or the Information Age) by J. Holtham
Spill by Leigh Fondakowski
Father Unknown by Daniel Reitz
Youngblood Science Brunch: An Object at Brunch Tends to Stay at Brunch
Silver by Emily Chadwick Weiss
Old Four Legs by Clare Barron
Wonks (A Travesty) by Wilile Orbison
Struck by Tennis Kowalchuk, Brett Keyser, and Allison Waters
Lucy by Nick Lehane and Alex Suha
2012/2013 Season:
Informed Consent by Deborah Zoe Laufer
Life on Paper by Kenneth Lin
Danny’s Brain by Joe Gilford
Dark Matter by August Schulenburg
The Article in Question by Tom Rowan
The Drive by Anna Moench and Rob Rusli
The Devil’s Salt by France-Luce Benson
Pluto by Bridgette Wimberly
The Hundred Year Flood by Meghan Deans
Father Unknown by Daniel Reitz
The Death of the Slow’Dying Scuba Diver by Matthew Paul Olmos
Soldier of the Mind by Justin Fleming
First Light Readings
Isaac’s Eye by Lucas Hnath
2011/2012 Season:
Headstrong by Patrick Link
The Bone Wars by Jeff Bienstock, Patrick Link, and Eric March
Warmth by Bekah Brunstetter
Icarus Falling by Holli Harms
Soldier of the Mind by Justin Fleming
Before you Ruin It by Laura Jacqumin
Out of Orbit by Jennifer Maisel
Kasimov by Beau Willimon
Some Brighter Distance by Keith Reddin
Fast Company by Carlia Ching
The Unusual Love Life of Bed Bugs and Other Creatures by Cori Thomas
2010/2011 Season:
Pidgeon by Tommy Smith
Please Continue by Frank Basloe
Fast Company by Carla Ching
Smash by Robert Atkins
The Secret Life of Arthropods and Rodents by Cori Thomas
Ada by Kim Sherman and Margaret Vanderburg
Big Hungry World by Susan Bernfield
The Separation of Blood by Bridgette Wimberly
Flatland by Jon Levin
A Lady Alone by Lynn Eckert, Christine Farrell, and Kevin Confoy
Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler
2009/2010 Season:
Beautiful Night by Tommy Smith
Cecilia and the Universe by Adrienne Campbell-Holt and Emily Conbere
Gustie Returns by Jane Chotard Wheeler
Isaac’s Eye by Lucas Hnath
Great Eastern by Anna Moench
The Telephone Caveat by Adam Gwon and Justin Wener
Notes Toward the Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs by Mike Daisy
Dark Energy Stuns Universe by Leah Maddrie
Progress in Flying by Lynn Rosen
Youngblood’s Mystery Science Brunch
Lenin’s Embalmers by Vern Thiessen
2008/2009 Season:
End Days by Deborah Zoe Laufer
2007/2008 Seasons:
Lucy by Damien Atkins
2006/2007 Seasons:
Serendib by David Zellnick
2005/2006 Season:
Relativity by Cassandra Medley
2004/2005 Season:
Luminescence Dating by Carey Perloff
2003/2004 Season:
Days of Happiness by Arthur Giron
The Monkey Room by Kevin Fisher
L’Ornitotero: The Bird Machine by Carlo Adinolfi and Renee Phillipi
Paradise of Earthworms by David Valdes Greenwood
Scientific Shorts Commissioned by the Guthrie Theatre
Blackfootnotes by Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj
Girl Science by Larry Loebell
The Bones of Giants by Cheryl L. Davis
Twin Primes by Alex Lewin
Progress in Flying by Lynn Rosen
Gutenberg! The Musical! By Scott Brown and Anthony King
2002/2003 Season:
First Light 2003
2001/2002 Season:
The Secret Order by Robert Clyman
Relativity by Cassandra Medley
First in Flight by David Zellnik and Joesph Zellnik
String Fever by Jacquelyn Reingodl
Tooth & Claw by Michael Hollinger
Thread of Life by Rita Nachtman
Popular Science: One-Act Comedies Partition by Ira Hauptman
People Be Heard by Quincy Long
47 Monkeys by Kevin Fisher
Invasion of the Colored People by Ellen Lewis
Zero G by Peter Buchman
Fzzn Girl by Mojie Crigler
The Ballad of Pineas P. Gage by Crystal Skillman
2000/2001 Season:
First Light 2001
1999/2000 Season:
First Light 200
1998/1999 Season:
Tesla’s Letters by Jeffery Stanley
Youngblood’s Eureka! Staged Readings
1997/1998 Season:
First Light 1998
Links:
https://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org/est-sloan
https://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org/20182019
https://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org/history
https://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org/firstlight
https://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org/20192020/galileos-daughter
https://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org/est-blog-1/tag/FREEPLAY
https://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org/est-blog-1
http://www.scienceandfilm.org/articles/3045/science-plays-featured-at-the-ensemble-studio-theatre
https://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org/2015/2016/2016/1/22/ruth
https://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org/firstlight
Entered by: Anna Galanides
