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2013-2014 Science Playwrighting Competition
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Abstract:
The SBU Science Playwriting Competition is thrilled to announce this year’s winners. Students, staff, faculty, and members of the general public contributed 10-minute plays with strong components of science and theatricality. The First Prize of $500 goes to Colin West, graduate student in the C.N.~Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics, for his play “Understanding”. The Second Prize of $200 goes to Bruce Futcher, professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, for his play “Searching for David”; and Third Prize of $100 goes to David Vazdauskas, a marketing strategist and amateur playwright from Brunswick, Maine, for his play “The Future Tells the Truth”. A play that receives honorable mention is “Good Advice” by Matt von Hippel, graduate student in the C.N.~Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics. This year is the second time the competition has been held. The object of the competition was to bring the sciences and the humanities a little closer together. On the one hand, science plays can be an excellent vehicle for explaining knotty and difficult scientific ideas to the general public. On the other, science can provide the inspiration for a play of exceptional artistic merit. Stony Brook has always led the way in recognizing the importance of disseminating scientific knowledge in new and interesting ways. This project gives an outlet for scientists and playwrights to stretch beyond the bounds of their normal way of thinking, spark the imagination, and synthesize a new experience for all. Many of the submitted plays succeeded in one or more of these respects, and it was challenging to single out the winners. In Colin West’s “Understanding”, two passionate scientists in the 1950s pitch to a practical-minded politician for funding in a play about space exploration, politics, and above all, scientific communication. Bruce Futcher’s “Searching for David” is a moral tale about what to do when scientific results do not agree with what you thought was true. “The Future Tells the Truth” by David Vazdauskas takes us to the time of the late nineteenth-century Columbian exhibition in Chicago when Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla’s demonstrations of direct and alternating current reveal how huge the power of personality may have been in altering the future of electricity. “Good Advice” by Matt von Hippel examines the complicated yet familiar relationships between advisors and their students.
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