Nick Payne – Science Centre Stage

January 4, 2016January 5, 2016

Highlights from a Year of Science in Theatre 2015

In a year in which high-profile productions such as Photograph 51 and Oppenheimer attracted considerable attention for bringing science to the stage, 2015 was also a year in which smaller gems such as Islington Community Theatre’s Brainstorm shone.

Nicole Kidman, who plays Rosalind Franklin in Photograph 51. Photo: Marc Brenner — Nicole Kidman played Rosalind Franklin in Photograph 51. Photo: Marc Brenner

It was arguably the star appeal of Nicole Kidman rather than the play that drew audiences to the Noel Coward Theatre in September to see Anna Zeigler’s Photograph 51. However, those who saw Kidman’s portrayal of Rosalind Franklin (for which she received an Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress) in Michael Grandage’s production saw a theatrical depiction of an intriguing period in the history of science. Science Centre Stage spoke to Edward Bennett, who played Nobel prize wining biophysicist Francis Crick in the production, about his approach to playing a real-life character and visiting the archives at Kings College London. Photograph 51 is currently nominated for best new play in the What’s On Stage Awards (despite first being performed in the USA in 2007).

When Tom Morton-Smith’s play Oppenheimer opened at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre at the beginning of the year, its subsequent success was sufficient to lead to a West End transfer. Commuters in London encountered hundreds of posters featuring John Heffernan as J. Robert Oppenheimer promoting the play at the Vaudeville Theatre where it played for two months. The Institute of Physics and Graham Farmelo arranged a panel discussion at the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon in which the playwright, director Angus Jackson, physicist Prof. Frank Close, science journalist Alok Jha and former Times literary editor Erica Wagner discussed the themes of the play in an event chaired by deputy artistic director of the RSC Erica Whyman.

Another panel discussion in May at the Royal Society, also chaired by Erica Whyman, saw Tom Morton-Smith discuss Oppenheimer with Prof. Marcus du Sautoy, Prof. John Barrow and science-theatre scholar Prof. Kirsten Shepherd-Barr (whose new book Theatre and Evolution from Ibsen to Beckett was published by Columbia University Press in 2015).

Although Oppenheimer and Photograph 51 offered the highest profile portrayals of scientists in mainstream theatre last year, there were also some very strong smaller scale performances bringing together science and theatre, particularly generated by collaborations between scientists, theatre makers and writers.

Brainstorm was developed with support from the Wellcome Trust — Brainstorm was developed by Islington Community Theatre with support from the Wellcome Trust

An undoubted highlight of 2015 was Brainstorm, Islington Community Theatre’s uplifting and energetic piece exploration of the neuroscience of the teenage brain. It was performed by 10 teenagers with support from the Wellcome Trust and was devised by the cast with guidance from UCL neuroscientists Prof. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and Katie Mills and directed by Ned Glasier. A hugely successful opening run at the small Park Theatre in January led to a well-deserved transfer to the National Theatre’s temporary theatre space in the summer. Islington Community Theatre then took part in Battersea Arts Centre’s Live From Television Centre project, resulting in a 30-minute version of Brainstorm becoming available on BBC iPlayer, substantially widening the audience it reached. Brainstorm will return to the National Theatre in 2016.

Harry Lister Smith Photo: Richard Davenport — Harry Lister Smith in Metta Theatre’s Mouthful Photo: Richard Davenport

Another intriguing production benefiting from Wellcome Trust support in 2015 was Metta Theatres’ Mouthful, in which international playwrights were paired with scientists to produce six short plays about the global food crisis. The result was a thought provoking and engaging production at London’s Trafalgar Studios. Science Centre Stage spoke to Metta Theatre’s artistic director Poppy Burton-Morgan about the development process behind Mouthful and how the scientists and writers worked together to create the plays.

Menagerie Theatre also continued their strong programme of pairing academics and writers in their What’s Up Doc? series for the 2015 Hotbed Festival in Cambridge. Pictures of You was writer Craig Baxter’s latest collaboration with Dr. Martina Di Simplicio of the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge University, in which mental imagery was explored in a short play that was subsequently had a short run at London’s Soho Theatre.

That Is All You Need To Know - Idle Motion — That Is All You Need To Know – Idle Motion

There was barely space to swing Alan Turing’s bicycle in the upstairs space at the Arts Theatre (though they tried) as The Hope Theatre’s performed Snoo Wilson’s Lovesong of the Electric Bear in a quirky and offbeat take on the life of Alan Turing directed by Matthew Parker. Meanwhile, Turing also featured in That Is All You Need To Know at the New Diorama Theatre as Idle Motion performed their Bletchley Park inspired piece of remarkable devised physical theatre for the last ever time.

At the peripheries of the science-theatre genre lie certain plays presenting dystopic but feasible near-future scenarios. In 2015 the Royal Court Theatre’s production of Jennifer Haley’s The Nether asked pressing questions about the boundaries between the online world and reality during a 12 week run at the Duke of York’s Theatre. The Young Vic Theatre played host to Southampton Nuffield’s revival of Caryl Churchill’s A Number, exploring the possible consequences of where human cloning could take us. Science Centre Stage spoke to director Michael Longhurst about the background to the play and how he and Tom Scutt worked together on the striking set design.

Nick Payne's Constellations had a UK Tour in 2015 — Nick Payne’s Constellations had a UK Tour in 2015

The inestimable Tom Stoppard topped and tailed the year with his new neuroscience-inspired play The Hard Problem opening at the National Theatre in January and a revival of the little-performed Hapgood at Hampstead Theatre in December. Hapgood is a spy-thriller drawing on ideas from quantum physics which apparently baffled many who saw the original production in 1988. However, Stoppard has revised the play several times since, including an updated version for the Hampstead Theatre that runs until 23rd January 2016.

The Hard Problem will have its USA premiere from 6th January 2016 at he Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia. Stoppard discussed the play with philosopher David Chalmers, who first coined the term the ‘hard problem’ to address the question of consciousness, on stage recently ahead of the new production.

January 2015 saw the death of scientist and playwright Carl Djerassi at the age of 91. Djerassi’s writing about the relationship between science and theatre was extensive and he wrote many plays, including Insufficiency and Oxygen (with Roald Hoffmann) each constructed around some aspect of science. Despite at times being controversial, and with mixed reactions to his plays, his approach was spirited and there is no doubt Djerassi contributed a great deal to the consideration of the place of science on the stage. Jenny Rohn wrote thoughtfully about her own interactions with Djerrassi in a piece for LabLit in March.

Lisa Dillon as Elizabeth Haploid at the Hampstead Theatre until 23rd January — Lisa Dillon as Elizabeth Hapgood at the Hampstead Theatre until 23rd January

If 2015 was a strong year for science in theatre then 2016 also has some interesting prospects in store. A new play by Nick Payne for the Donmar Warehouse opens in April. The Royal Shakespeare Company will apply their considerable resources and talents to a new version of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, arguably one of the early depictions of a scientist in theatre. But if Photograph 51, Oppenheimer and The Hard Problem were some of the mainstream successes of 2015, it is the smaller gems that may also be most worth seeking out in 2016.

July 16, 2015August 27, 2015

Q&A with Director Michael Longhurst

Michael Longhurst has directed many critically acclaimed productions, including Nick Payne’s Constellations in the West End and Broadway. Longhurst is an Associate Director at Southampton’s Nuffield Theatre and his new version of Caryl Churchill’s A Number for Nuffield recently transferred to London’s Young Vic Theatre. Science Centre Stage spoke to Michael Longhurst about his views on science in theatre and on how he worked with designer Tom Scutt on the remarkable stage set for A Number.

A Number was first produced in 2002 at a time when cloning was very much in the public conscience (not least because of ‘Dolly the Sheep’). What stimulated you to direct A Number again now?

It’s a play that I had read at drama school and had fallen in love with at that moment. I think the line-by-line writing that Carol makes the scenes out of is extraordinary. I studied philosophy at university and I think the thematic ideas of the play are really interesting. They go beyond and above the idea of cloning and into the idea of personal identity, and beyond and above the idea of nature and nurture and into the idea of freewill and determinism. She is so erudite in packing in so many ideas into a very short, punchy play and it’s an incredibly exciting theatrical premise.

Science is a key enabler in understanding who we are, who we are now and who we are becoming.

Fundamentally, we watch an actor pretend to be more than one version of himself, which is absolutely the most basic part of acting and theatre. It allows us to access the idea of a clone with the same genetics but who behaves differently. I love the simplicity, theatricality and complexity of the ideas it draws on. We were looking for an exciting project for Southampton University (where The Nuffield is based). It has a lot of specialization in biomedicine, so we hoped that it would appeal to some of the audience there. I was working with designer Tom Scutt, who also designed Constellations, and we were excited about the design opportunity to really push a conceptual version of this play in how we staged it. The strength of reaction is one of the major factors that has brought it to life again and brought it into town (at the Young Vic).

A NUMBER by Churchhill , Writer - Caryl Churchill, Director - Michael Longhurst, Designer - Tom Scutt, Lighting - Lee Curran, The Young Vic Theatre, 2015, Credit: Johan Persson/ — John and Lex Shrapnel in A Number, Young Vic Theatre 2015, Credit: Johan Pehrsson

In rehearsals we were looking at the progress of the genetic world and interestingly as science advances there’s nothing that makes the play obsolete. The ideas that Caryl Churchill puts forward in the play are still pressing and they become more pertinent the more familiar we become with genetic advances and possibilities. Crudely, we haven’t yet cloned a human so the play’s not yet out of date. It is still a play that is asking- ‘what if ?’ The fact that we are more aware of the advances, such as being able to edit the human genome means that out idea of it as something that is in the dim and distant future in some dystopian world is being eroded. Our world is getting closer to this and I think that makes the ethical questions of the play present more pressing.

In developing the production did you talk to scientists in the similar manner to the way that you and Nick Payne did with Constellations?

Interestingly, the play never mentions the word cloning. The characters, certainly the clones, aren’t aware of this process. So in some sense it wasn’t something that the characters in the play necessarily understood. It was an opportunity that was offered to the father and that he benefits from and it’s a complete shock and surprise to the son. We did work in rehearsals to try to understand how cloning works, but actually we didn’t go out to meet scientists who are experts in their field because the characters themselves have a lay understanding of cloning, which we supplemented by research in the rehearsals.

How do you go about the process of putting together ideas with stage designer Tom Scutt?

Whenever I enter a design process it feels like there’s what I call top-down and bottom-up work. Top down work asks what are the themes that we are trying to capture? How can we use metaphor? How can we create an environment that has an emotional resonance with what we’re trying to say about the play? And then there’s the practical stuff- the bottom-up stuff – which is what does the play need? A Number actually needs nothing. With two bodies and no props, it frees you from many stage constraints. We decided at Nuffield that we wanted to give the audience a new experience, so we created an installation. We weren’t doing a traditional proscenium arch production of it. We were allowed to play with capacity, and make it an incredibly intimate experience. Tom hit on the idea of using mirrors, which felt like he had very cleanly, profoundly and simply hit upon both the ideas of identity – who are we? – and the idea of a multiplicity of reflections. Often as a director your job is to have these thematic discussions with a designer, and then be brave when they offer you an exciting solution. In a piece of live theatre the actors and audience are sharing a space, and in this instance I put them behind a glass wall and used microphones. But I hope that in addition to the ideas of reflection and identity, it also gives the audience a feeling of watching an interrogation. It’s not dissimilar to when you go to a police line-up through a two-way mirror. I think what that does is tie into the ethical issues, the idea of responsibility, the idea of our agency, the idea of guilt, blame and consequence. I think that all of those were useful social ideas to bring up in a stage design.

Often as a director your job is to have these thematic discussions with a designer, and then be brave when they offer you an exciting solution.

Do you think there is complementarity with Jennifer Haley’s play ‘The Nether’ which literally depicts an interrogation in a near-future science fiction scenario?

Yes, absolutely. Both are taking out technological capabilities and pushing them a little bit further, looking at how humanity will respond if we are able to do those things. And do we like how humanity could respond? And therefore do we want our society to go in that direction? I think that’s the value of all “sci-fi work” is that it allows you to examine the society that we are in through looking at a society we’re not in.

There are productions of A Number that have used test tubes a lot and very heavy scientific aesthetic and I think potentially that might have been interesting when the play first came out – when there was a sort of hype and horror around cloning. Actually what we wanted to do was push our aesthetic into a slightly different place. I put the idea of an interrogation room, which is more about responsibility and ‘blame’.

Did recent public debate and legislative changes surrounding mitochondrial donation influence this new production of A Number?

These advances are having huge gestalt shifts in our thinking, the idea of a three parent family, or the idea of being able to edit our genes are huge. The fact that we can’t achieve it at a certain level doesn’t mean conceptually we’re not on a certain pathway. It seems like as soon as we acknowledge the possibility of editing the genome, then we’re able to correct genetic diseases but we’re also a step nearer to eugenics. That is an important thing that we need to be thinking about.

Do you think the success of plays such as Constellations and A Number indicates a growing place for science in the cultural life?

I have directed predominantly new writing. I love theatre that is exploring who we are and science is a key enabler in understanding who we are, who we are now and who we are becoming. I think a writer who uses science to explore and answer that question can often tap into hugely exciting, revelatory and challenging areas of our humanity. I think as a theatre maker when you have a play that is exploring science, often formally – as is in the case of Constellations and actually in the case of A Number, both of those plays have the form of the play, or at least the theatrical experience dictated by the science. In A Number you’ve got one actor playing several clones. He literally embodies the act of cloning – but it also makes very good theatre. And in Constellations the form of the play was repeated versions of the multiverse. It’s an exciting theatrical provocation for an audience. In the design there’s lots of potential for metaphor. All of these things appeal to me as I’m interested in analytical ways of thinking. I guess it’s a personal preference but I think it’s a really valuable branch of theatre.

Would you argue that science in theatre works best when the science informs the structure rather than the didactic content?

Absolutely. If we’re trying to understand scientific principles there are probably much deeper lectures that one could go to, essays or journals that one could read or documentaries that one could watch. But I think what theatre can do is dramatize emotional consequences of what the science is. It can help us have an emotional understanding and ask the ethical question. Constellations poses what does it feel like to be in a multiverse? Actually, what that does is it makes you realize that I can’t access these other parallel universes, so my choices in this one are all the more precious. And that is the emotional feeling of the play.

I think A Number asks if we could do these things then what would be the ramifications be? What does it mean – this idea that man is born equally? Well genetically he’s not. If we are given these opportunities, how can they be used or abused?

A Number, directed by Michael Longhurst, runs at London’s Young Vic until 15^th August.

The Royal Court Theatre tour of Constellations is at Trafalgar Studios until 1st August.

May 11, 2015May 11, 2015

Latest Science Theatre News

As the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Society jointly host a panel discussion on science–inspired theatre, there is plenty more news on science in theatre to catch up on this month.

Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, Tom Morton-Smith, John Barrow, Marcus du Sautoy and Richard Bean will join RSC deputy artistic director Erica Whyman for ‘A dramatic experiment: science on stage’ on Monday 11th May. The panel discussion at the Royal Society in London will be broadcast live and then available to view later on the Royal Society’s website.

A new UK tour of the Royal Court Theatre’s Constellations opens this month and will play at venues throughout England including Liverpool, Bristol and Cambridge until the beginning of July. The production features Joe Armstrong and Louise Brealey, who is perhaps best known for her role in television’s Sherlock. The recent production of Constellations on Broadway has earned Ruth Wilson a Tony Award nomination for playing Marianne in Nick Payne’s one act play about the relationship between a bee keeper and a physicist, played out in multiple universes.

The profile of science in London’s West End, recently raised by the transfer of Tom Morton-Smith’s Oppenheimer, will further increase in September when Michael Grandage stages Photograph 51 at the Noel Coward Theatre. Nicole Kidman will play Rosalind Franklin, the pioneering crystallographer who had a pivotal role in the discovery of the structure of DNA, in the first UK production of Anna Ziegler’s play. Constellations_uk_tour

Meanwhile it’s been recently announced that Ophelia Lovibond from BBC satire W1A will play Connie in Sheffield Theatres’ production of Lucy Prebble’s The Effect, which opens at the Cruicible Studio in June.

Finally, Menagerie Theatre Company have announced that their Hotbed Festival in July 2015 will include a new play by Craig Baxter called Pictures of You, inspired by the use of imagery as a treatment in mental health, meaning there is plenty in store for science in theatre in the coming months.

November 17, 2014November 27, 2014

Oppenheimer and a New Stoppard Play for 2015

There are some promising events in store for science-on-stage in 2015 as new works premiere and established pieces are revived.

The Royal Shakespeare Company will open its winter season in Stratford-Upon-Avon with a new work by Tom Morton-Smith about the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Depicting work on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos in the 1940s, Oppenheimer will preview from 15th January and then run in the Swan Theatre until the 7^th March. Oppenheimer at the RSC

It’s 21 years since Tom Stoppard’s classic Arcadia premiered at the National Theatre in London but it’s only a few weeks until the NT produce new work by Stoppard with a scientific theme. The Hard Problem will be the last production to be directed by outgoing NT director Nicholas Hytner. It promises to be an intriguing production to finish on, as Stoppard tackles brain science and consciousness in his first new play since 2006. The sold out production will be staged in the newly refurbished Dorfman (formally Cottesloe) Theatre and will run from the 21st January to April 2015.

The Hard Problem Tells the Story of a psychologist at a brain research institute grappling with the issue of consciousness. — *The Hard Problem* tells the Story of a psychologist at a brain research institute grappling with the issue of consciousness.

Also in the new year, English Touring Theatre will take a production of Stoppard’s Arcadia directed by Blanche McIntyre around various venues until April, beginning at the Theatre Royal Brighton on 20^th January 2015.

With Southampton Nuffied Theatre’s production of Caryl Churchill’s A Number (with stage design by Tom Scutt) to transfer to The Young Vic in London in later 2015 and the Broadway premiere of Nick Paynes’s Constellations, there’s plenty in store for science in theatres in 2015.

July 3, 2014

Australia, New Zealand and South Africa – Science in the Sun

There are plenty of opportunities to catch a science-in-theatre production in the sunny southern hemisphere this year. Productions of Lucy Prebble’s The Effect are going on in Australia throughout the year. It’s currently on in Brisbane until 5th July, with opportunities to see it in Sydney and Melbourne in the coming months. Meanwhile, Nick Payne’s Constellations is being produced in South Africa with productions in Johannesburg from 8th August and in Cape Town from 30th September.

Productions of Constellations also open in Wellington, New Zealand on 26th July as in Sydney, Australia on 8th August.

Keep an eye on the Science Centre Stage calendar and map for further details of productions coming up near you.

June 14, 2014June 14, 2014

A Payne In The Head Draws To An End

There’s s now only one week left to catch neuroscience drama Incognito at London’s Bush Theatre before it closes on 21st June. A fundraising gala performance on Thursday 19th June will conclude with a Q&A session with the writer Nick Payne.

Meanwhile, the first details of the USA premiere of Payne’s play Constellations are beginning to emerge. The production will preview from 16th December 2014 and open at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on Broadway on 13th January 2015.

Michael Longhurst (who also directed the Royal Court production in London in 2012) will direct Jake Gyllenhaal as Roland in Payne’s one act play about the relationship between a physicist and a beekeeper which draws on ideas from multiverse theories.

Read more about Incognito and Constellations on ScienceCentreStage

April 30, 2014June 14, 2014

Incognito is a Conspicuous Hit

Nick Payne’s hotly anticipated play Incognito has attracted four and five star reviews in the British press after premiering at the High Tide Festival earlier this month. Incognito is currently completing a run at Theatre Live Newcastle (who co-produced the play with nabokov) until 3rd May, before transferring to North Wall Arts Centre in Oxford and then to the Bush Theatre in London from the 14th May to 21st June.

Incognito does for neuroscience and psychology what Payne’s previous science-inspired play, Constellations, did for physics and beekeeping. Like Constellations, the scenes are snappy and constantly colliding into each other, transitions signified by jarring audio stings. However, whereas Constellations repeatedly explored the possible paths of a relationship between just two people (the physicist and the beekeeper), Incognito crams scores of characters (both real life and fictional) into its 90 minutes, all of which are played by just four actors

Combining fact and fiction, fantasy and reality into a single piece inevitably introduces ambiguities for an audience. As a preface to the text of Incognito, Nick Payne writes “despite being based, albeit very loosely, on several true stories, this play is a work of fiction.” Thomas Stolz Harvey, the pathologist who removed Einstein’s brain in 1955 certainly lived, as did many of the other characters in Incognito. Other parts are fictionalised versions of real people such as Henry M who developed amnesia after surgery for epilepsy in the mid 20th century. And many of the characters are simply conjured by Payne, enabling him to weave together multiple engaging human tales.

Alison O'Donnell and Paul Hickey in Incognito by Nick Payne

It takes some feat of acting to convincingly bring to life over 20 distinct characters without overlap but Paul Hickey, Amelia Lowdel, Alison O’Donnell and Sargon Yelda achieve it admirably, switching between accents and postures in the blink of an eye. Joe Murphy’s direction seems to employ an almost clinical precision in the movement. Yelda’s range is particularly broad, evoking empathy and disgust for his characters in short order.

The range of ideas addressed in Incognito is equally broad, from the spontaneous emergent order displayed by a flock of starlings to concepts in mental health, medical ethics, establishing a sense of family and belonging and personal identity. There is a lot to unpack in this play, which is all bundled up in the history of science, pseudo-history and pure dramatisation. But it’s certainly worth a look because once again Nick Payne intrigues and inspires with a complex new work.

January 31, 2014February 4, 2014

Nick Payne’s Incognito Dates for London and Newcastle

The Bush Theatre in London has announced that Nick Payne’s new play Incognito will form part of its 2014 season. Joe Murphy will direct the production which runs between 14 May and 21 June 2014, after premiering at the High Tide Festival in April.

In addition to featuring a plot about the theft of Einstein’s brain during his autopsy in 1955, Incognito also deals with Henry M, whose neurosurgery for epilepsy in 1957 permitted new insights into the nature of memory. A third theme about a modern day neuropsychologist facing the breakdown of her marriage completes a trio of interwoven tales.

There will also be previews of Incognito at the Live Theatre in Newcastle 3-5 April 2014 followed by a full production later the same month.

December 31, 2013September 23, 2014

Science on Stage 2013: A Year in Review

The year 2013 has been a good one for the science-in-theatre genre with numerous performances of established classics staged throughout the world as well as new plays appearing on the scene.

The year began with the final few performances of Lucy Prebble’s The Effect at The National Theatre in London. The complexities of love amid a neuropharmacology clinical trial attracted both sell-out audiences and a clutch of awards and nominations for the Headlong/NT team.

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s new version of Brecht’s A Life of Galileo in the Swan Theatre brought audiences to Stratford-Upon-Avon to enjoy a lively and musical production with set-design by Tom Scutt.

Several new plays portraying the history of science opened throughout the year. Operation Epsilon by Alan Brody premiered in Boston USA, dealing with the post-war detention of German nuclear scientists and offering an intriguing postscript to Michael Frayn’s mighty Copenhagen. STELLA, a new play by Sibohan Nicholas featuring portrayals of 18^th Century astronomers Caroline and William Herschel, opened in Brighton in May and went on to tour small venues in the UK and Ireland throughout the summer.

A highlight of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August was Adura Onashile’s portrayal of Henrietta Lacks in her one-woman show HeLa. Onashile’s performance brought the story of Lacks treatment in the 1950s and the prolifically multiplying cell line that has lived on in the decades since her death to ever-wider audiences. The wartime code-breaking endeavors of Alan Turing and his colleagues at Bletchley Park were also brought to life at the Edinburgh Festival in Idle Motion’s immensely imaginative That is All You Need to Know.

As ever, Frayn’s Copenhagen and Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia proved popular choices for professional and amateur theatre companies throughout the world. In Hong Kong there was a reading of Copenhagen in Mandarin in October and as well as a revival of a production given by Nobel laureates in Gothenburg in December. The appeal of Arcadia was confirmed this year when it was voted fourth in a list of the Britain’s favorite plays.

There are promising events in store for 2014 with the world premiere of Dava Sobel’s play about Copernicus And the Sun Stood Still set for production in Denver in April. With new tours of STELLA, Hanging Hooke and A Life of Galileo on the cards in the UK as well as a new play about neuroscience on the way from Constellations playwright Nick Payne, 2014 is looking bright for science-in-theatre.

December 30, 2013January 2, 2014

Incognito: Nick Payne Tackles Neuroscience in New Play

A new play about neuroscience by Nick Payne will premiere at the HighTide festival in Suffolk in 2014. Payne, who enjoyed success with Constellations, has written Incognito for the festival which takes place in Halseworth between 10-19 April. According to the Guardian, Incognito has a similarly complex structure to Constellations and weaves several stories, including a plot about the autopsy in which Einstein’s brain was removed and dissected in 1955.

Incognito will be in preview at Theatre Live Newcastle between 3-5 April and will also be performed at the North Wall Arts Centre in Oxford between 6-10 May 2014.