The Theatre of Science
- Venue: Collaborative Digital Research Space (CDRS) | MN 3230, UTM Campus
- Time: Select Fridays 1-4 p.m. | Lunch will be available from 12:30 p.m. onwards
The recent pandemic has made it abundantly clear that scientific insights must be communicated clearly and effectively so that the public understands and ‘buys in’ by changing its behavioural practices collectively. Persuasive social theatre and suggestive performance techniques are crucial parts of scientific communication strategies — the sciences need the theatre! This need for ‘self-theatricalization’ will only grow in the future, as most key sciences in the 21st century will be ‘embodied sciences.’
On the other hand, there is (and continues to be) a rich and important history of playwrights putting science and scientists on stage, thereby creating interfaces and highly visible public discourses at the intersection of society, religion, politics, knowledge creation, and ethics.
In this series, we’ll examine some of the manifold modes in which sciences and theatre-and-performance art continue to interact. We’ll explore key areas of contact between science/technology and theatre/performance; which sciences and scientists currently attract theatrical interest; where and how scientific knowledge begins and ends — and who needs to know it; and how theatre and performance can best contribute to such re-conceptualized ‘scientific knowledge.’
Poster image: Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, 1632.
Schedule of Events
Theatre and the Environment | Medicine and Theatre | Mobility/Disability and Performance | Oppenheimer - Theatricalizing Physics and Physicists | Turning Math into Theatre | Indigenous Science
Theatre and the environment (1)
Friday, September 20, 2024
Distinguished lecture & workshop with Canadian playwright Chantal Bilodeau
This public event will feature the Canadian playwright (and climate activist) Chantal Bilodeau who is currently working on an ‘Arctic Cycle’ of eight plays which are each set on one of the eight countries which border on the Arctic. Sila (set in Canada) and Forward (set in Finland) have been both been staged and published (in 2015 and 2017 respectively). Bilodeau will be invited to give a Distinguished Lecture, which will be accompanied by short performances/scene studies prepared by undergraduate acting students (who have been working quite extensively on Bilodeau in the previous seminar context).
Theatre and the environment (2)
Friday, October 4, 2024
Dawn King’s The Trials | Guest: Prof. Monika Havelka, Department of Geography, Geomatics and Environment
This seminar focuses on the recent play The Trials by Dawn King (first produced in 2022). A dystopian courtroom drama, the play features as its protagonist a jury of twelve underage adolescents who have to decide whether or not to condemn three adult defendants to death. A controversial instance of climate change ‘catastrophism’, the play will be put into perspective by our colleague Prof. Havelka who in turn will be supported by student presentations. We will also invite the director, collaborators, and the cast of the U of T production of The Trials (Hart House Theatre, March 2024) to this event.
Medicine and theatre (1)
Friday, November 8, 2024
Margaret Edson’s W;t | Guests: Linda Hutcheon/Michael Hutcheon, Comparative Literature/Medicine, University of Toronto
This seminar will engage with the remarkable play W;t (awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1999) by Margaret Edson which takes the audience through the chemotherapy and cancer death of the fictitious English professor (and Donne specialist) Vivian Bearing. A sophisticated modern tragedy (with its fair moments of comedy), the play will be used as a springboard for stimulating discussion about the interface of science and the Humanities as well as the role which theatre-and-performance based approaches to medical research and practice could play in the future. We will attempt to recruit, probably from the U of T ecosystem, individuals from the fields of medicine and/or nursing, to supplement our discussions. The seminar will also include a table read/scene studies of select moments from the play.
Medicine and theatre (2) - Narrative medicine workshop
Friday, November 29, 2024
Guest panelists: Sarah Granger (actor) and Nick Green (actor & playwright)
This seminar will feature a panel discussion with artists who have worked with themes of medicine, illness, and wellness on stage (e.g., Nick Green, playwright of Casey and Diana [2023]). Student co-applicants will act as interviewers. Lunan Zhao, a member of the core group and Resident Doctor (family medicine) at U of T’s Faculty of Medicine, will also join the discussion as an additional interlocutor.
[NB: As it is difficult for medical students to attend any extra-curricular events during the week, this particular seminar MAY be scheduled not for a Friday but a Saturday afternoon.]
Mobility/Disability and performance
Friday, January 17, 2025
Guest: Toronto's Disability Collective
This session will feature scene studies from works regarding disability and feature a discussion regarding accessibility in theatrical works and the concept of "playing sick."
Oppenheimer - Theatricalizing physics and physicists
Friday, February 7, 2025
Guests: Rebekah Pullen, Department of Political Science, McMaster University and Matthew Jordan, Department of History, Princeton University
The focus of this session will be the intriguing and controversial figure of Robert Oppenheimer, who has fascinated the public since 1945 and has re-gained global notoriety through John Adams’ opera Doctor Atomic (2005) and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer movie (2023). In its currently planned format, an invited guest speaker from Physics will introduce the session with remarks on the scientific and political aspects of nuclear physics and the role of physics as a lead science in the 20th century. This will be supplemented by screenings from the opera and the movie, to be followed by interactive activities designed by the undergraduates in our core group.
Mathematics: David Auburn Proof - Turning math into theatre
Friday, March 7, 2025
Guests: Alexander Offord/Nicole Wilson, Artistic Co-Directors Good Old Neon
This session will feature another Pulitzer-Prize-winning play (in 2001). It is related to the foundational discipline of mathematics, in its dual role as a scientific tool and a distinct mode of sense-making and word-building in its own right. Our guests will be the Co-Directors of the Good Old Neon theatre company Nicole Wilson and Alexander Offord who, in addition to their theatre work, have academic backgrounds in mathematics and the history of science respectively. The seminar will, among other things, explore the meaning, process and significance of the mathematical proof as well as its connections to mathematicians and the world around them. For this session we will also reach out to the UTM Mathematics department to attract further interest from both students and faculty.
Indigenous science
Friday, March 21, 2025
Guest: Prof. Laurie Rousseau-Nepton, Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics
This public session will feature a screening of the five-part National Film Board series North Star about Dr. Rousseau-Nepton, the first Indigenous woman in Canada to earn a PhD in astrophysics. We will invite Dr. Rousseau-Nepton for an interview (following the screening), led by two undergraduate co-applicants. This session will help us examine varied ways of knowing. Evan Moritz, a member of our core group and doctoral student from U of T’s Centre for Theatre, Drama and Performance whose research prominently involves Indigenous science (with fieldwork centred in Iqaluit [Nunavut]) will join this session as an additional interlocutor.