The Science Plays

Urban Stages, New York City, Off-Off-Broadway

About the Show

Beginning with an egomaniacal–and frustrating dawdling–Archimedes and ending with a couple selecting its genetically perfect baby, each of The Science Plays, written by Milk Can playwrights, tells the story of a different moment in the history of science. These original, ten-minute plays address the intellectual complexities and ethical uncertainties of the constantly changing and ever wondrous world of science.

Works include:

The Sense of Genius by Cheryl L. Davis; directed by Riv Massey

The Sense of Genius looks at the disconnect between genius and the everyday. The same gifts that enabled the scientist Archimedes to change his world also made him unable to live in it.

Gertrude & Alyce Will Serve Ye Soone by Bethany Larsen; directed by Ryan Ratelle

Alyce annoys Gertrude. Gertrude bosses Alyce around. Working girls have never had it easy — especially not in (or at) Medieval Times …

Newton’s Genesis by ML Kinney; directed by Bobbi Masters

Word play in the Garden of Eden.

Unraveled by Riv Massey; directed by Bethany Larsen
A family torn apart by the new machine operated looms. Is it better to stay in the past or take the sometimes violent steps that lead to the future?

Drill by Andy Snyder; directed by Kimberly VerSteeg

It’s 1953. Fear and suspicion come between three sixth-grade classmates when an air raid siren interrupts their school day and forces them to face the real enemy threatening their safety.

Greener Grass by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer; directed by Seth Gamble

Free will versus Fate. It’s a debate as old as time and one that seems to repeat itself with more and more frequency as we discover new ways in which to control our biology.

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