The theatrical stage offers the unique opportunity
to raise a community’s awareness and understanding
of the issues that surround the cutting-edge
research defining our technological revolution.
Then join us for an evening of plays that address
the cultural and aesthetic significance of biotechnology
from stem cell research to genetic manipulation
with a special interest in works that are in
dialogue with nanotechnology.
BIOTECHNOLOGY
IN PERFORMANCE
Between November 1st and November
14th of 2009 The Biotech Performance Festival
sought to transform the theatrical stage into
a laboratory and the playwright into a researcher
with the ninety minute evening of plays in
the University of Albany Performing Arts Center.
Also, The Biotech Performance Festival brought
the playwrights together with scientists in
a panel that explores the new set of questions
revolving around our emerging definition of
humanity.
Our ever-evolving technology redraws what
constitutes the living and the mechanical,
the generated and the engineered, the synthetic
and the natural. The theatrical stage offers
the unique opportunity to raise a community’s
awareness and understanding of the issues
that surround the cutting-edge research defining
this technological revolution. As a “live”
medium, theatre is at its most emotionally
effective when used to interpret the events
of history. To that end, these plays provide
an outlet for a theatrical response to a world
in which our perceptions of nature and culture
have been greatly affected by this transformative
phenomenon. And provide a launch pad to investigating
the technological revolution in our classrooms
and communities.
IT’S A SMALL, SMALL WORLD
Lynne Kaufman
Alice Klein is substituting for the 8th grade
science teacher and needs to prepare a lecture
on nanotechnology, a subject about which she
knows very little. She prevails upon her 15
year old son, Joey, to provide her with a
crash course. Amidst wise cracking teen-age
banter, she learns the fascinating history
of nano-technology from Buckyballs to nanobots
to nano cancer treatment.
IN THE SYSTEM
William Kennedy
Ace believes he has invented a computer program
that “moves time backwards” and can make a
killing on the track. Deuce just wants to
win enough to treat his lady-love, Daphne.
In the System is a blistering comedy about
to small-time gamblers and their entrancing
relationship with technology as they grind
out a two-dimensional version of their never-ending
scramble for their fair share of the American
dream.
STAINED GLASS
Lindsay Price
Merritt Craig is about to make history by
participating in the first human trial of
a break through cancer treatment. She's running
out of time and running out of patience trying
to explain the
treatment. Merritt's sister Dee is having
her own trial - In a family of scientists
she's the odd ball out and always has been.
Dee tries to keep up a face of mother calm
but it's not easy. Her demons return as the
countdown to the trial approaches.
THE SECOND COMING
Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro
The snow is falling in Lisbon, the pigeons
have disappeared, grasshoppers the size of
rats are cutting their way across Poland;
and people are still engaged in their petty
domestic quarrels. When the apocalypse arrives,
a man-bird, created in the lab of a murderous
scientist, assesses the damage and the opportunities.
A keen observer of men and birds, he is not
at all sad that neither species has survived
with the exception of himself and a human
child.
A TALE FOR CHILDREN
Jackie Roberts
A Tale for Children tells the story of 18
year old wheelchair-bound Rose and her 21
year old suitor, Peter, on the day that he
asks for her hand in marriage. Peter soon
discovers that Rose’s “condition” stems from
her being a mermaid -- a fact her mother has
managed to keep covered through Rose’s constant
knitting of a bottomless Afghan. Once the
truth accidentally reveals itself, the mother
confesses that she has used her scientific
knowledge as a doctor to splice Rose’s genes
with those of an angler fish while she laid
in utero. The Mother would rather have her
daughter live as a novelty than as a woman
of color. It is just easier.
WRITERS BIOGRAPHIES:
Lynne Kaufman received her B.A. from Hunter
College and received her M.A. from Columbia
University as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. She
has had 15 full length plays produced at such
theatres as Actors Theatre of Louisville,
The Magic Theatre, Theatreworks, The Fountain
Theatre, The Abingdon Theatre and Florida
Studio Theatre. Her work has been awarded
Best New Play in San Francisco, Best New Play
in California, Dramalog Award for Playwriting,
William Inge Theatre Festival Playwright's
Award, Best Women Playwrights: 2003, and the
Kennedy Center/NEA Fund for New American Plays
Award. Her plays have been published by Smith
and Krause, Dramatist's Play Service and Dramatic
Publishing. She served as Director of Educational
Travel for U.C. Berkeley Continuing Education
for 25 years. Lynne currently teaches writing
at U.C. Berkeley and S.F. State University
Osher Life Long Learning Institutes.
William Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist,
is the founder and Executive Director of the
New York State Writers Institute. For some
40 years, Kennedy has used his hometown of
Albany, New York as the inspiration for his
work, crafting history and memory into an
“Albany of the imagination.” His novels include
Roscoe (2002), which was a finalist for the
National Book Critics Circle Award and the
PEN/Faulkner Award; The Flaming Corsage (1996);
Very Old Bones (1992); Quinn’s Book (1988);
Ironweed (1983), which received the Pulitzer
Prize and the National Book Critics Circle
Award; Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game (1978);
Legs (1975); and The Ink Truck (1969). Kennedy
has also written two nonfiction books, O Albany!
(1983), and Riding the Yellow Trolley Car
(1993), as well as the screenplay for the
film version of Ironweed (1987).
Lindsay Price is currently the resident writer
for Theatrefolk, an independent play publisher
for schools and student performers. Upcoming
this year Lindsay will act as a playwright
mentor in the Uth Ink program. Most recently:
BEAUTY AND THE BEE was a winner in the TADA!
Youth Theatre one act playwriting competition;
STROKE STATIC published by Playwrights Canada
Press; SWIMMING WITH SINS published by Original
Works Publishing; STILL published in the The
New Play Development Anthology . Lindsay is
a member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada,
the Dramatist Guild of America and the American
Association of Theatre Educators. She received
a Bachelor of Arts from Wilfrid Laurier University.
Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro is a playwright and
short story writer. Her plays include Behind
Enemy Lines (Pan Asian Repertory in N.Y.C),
Mishima (East West Players in L.A.), Martha
Mitchell (Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Six
Figures Theater Co. in N.Y.C.), Barrancas
(Magic Theater in S.F.), Pablo and Cleopatra
(New Theatre in Boston), Mexico City and Sailing
Down the Amazon (the Boston Women on Top Festival),
and It Doesn’t Take a Tornado and Amsterdam
(La MaMa in N.Y.C.). She is a co-producer,
writer, and narrator of Japanese American
Women: A Sense of Place, a documentary directed
by Leita Hagemann, which was part of a traveling
exhibit of the Smithsonian Institution. Her
plays have been anthologized by Baker’s Plays,
Heinemann, and Meriwether Publishing. Two
others will be published by Smith and Kraus
in 2009. She graduated from Harvard, received
an M.A. from Berkeley and lives in Cambridge,
MA.
Jackie Roberts has flourished for several
years as an actor working with the Crossroads
Theatre Company, Arena Stage and South Coast
Repertory, where she received a Southern California
Theatre Critics Award. She also she spent
several years on the Warner Bros.’ sitcom,
The Steve Harvey Show, as well as NBC’s The
West Wing. She has been a member of BLACKSMYTHS,
the African American writers, collective at
the Mark Taper Forum; and was a finalist for
the Sundance Playwriting Festival. Her play
Lick of the Knife was part of a joint workshop
with the Theatre Department and The New York
State Writers Institute as well as being a
finalist for the Eugene O’Neill Festival.
She received her graduate degree from the
Yale University School of Drama and is currently
an assistant professor of Theatre at the University
at Albany, State University of New York, as
well as a panelist for the National Endowment
for the Arts.
Thank you so much for your time,
Jackie Roberts, Assistant Professor of Theatre
Curator, Biotech Performance Festival
University at Albany
Performing Arts Center
Room 358
1400 Washington Ave
Albany N. Y. 12222
518 442 4212
Jr411498@albany.edu
