2012 Collider New Play Project

A Summer Theater Festival Event   July 7 – 21, 2012 Saturdays @ 1pm Tickets will be available at the door for $10 Suggested Donation A new play program partnering playwrights from around the country with scientists from Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory to develop new works that help us better understand the universe and who we are, while illuminating and celebrating the worlds of art, science and technology. The result will be world premier staged readings right here in St. Charles! Partially support by a grant from Dramatists Guild Fund. View Collider 2011 Projects

COLLIDER 2012 PLAYS ANNOUNCED

Quark

By Gloria Bond Clunie of Chicago

Directed by Chuck Smith

Staged Reading: Saturday, July 7, 2012 @ 1pm

Gloria Bond Clunie’s “Quark” embraces love, death, and the stars when Dr. Alexandra Seabold, an astrophysicist, and her husband Terry, a kindergarten teacher, wrestle with personal tragedy, commercial space travel, and feeding our starving planet as they struggle with – is “a taste of space” worth it? A highly introspective and very visual play, Quark uplifts as it tackles the challenging themes of death and dying, social responsibility, education and scientific literacy, and love and loss.

Life Electric

By Kevin Kautzman of Texas and Charlies Midwinter of Minnesota

Directed by Ronan Marra

Staged Reading: Saturday, July 14, 2012 @ 1pm

Co-playwrights Kevin Kautzman and Charles Midwinter‘s “Life Electric” is inspired by James Delbourgo’s A Most Amazing Scene of Wonders. The play will take place in the world of the 1740s and 50s and tackle issues around electricity, performance and enlightenment at the root of the American character. The play will explore the diminishment of spectacle and wonder around scientific innovation as electricity (or the “electric fire”) moves from the hands of a second-class showman and into the hands of Benjamin Franklin, a man who helped shape America as much as any other in the 18^th century.

The Fate of the Universe

By Monica Byrne of North Carolina

Directed by Reshmi Hazra

Staged Reading: Saturday, July 21, 2012 @ 1pm

Monica Byrne’s “The Fate of the Universe” follows six members of the Caltech astrophysics department as they settle into their annual “The Fate of the Universe” fall retreat at a redwood forest lodge. There, the strongest evidence yet for how the universe will end is presented: in a slow dissipation--the “Big Freeze”-- rather than a reunion, or a “Big Crunch.” Over bag lunches, the characters discuss this finding. Their reactions range from logical to emotional, and they begin to question how this finding reflects on the nature of existence itself. On the last day, the group takes a hike in the woods, during which they all become separated and lost, leaving them nothing but time to ponder ‘the fate of the universe.’

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About FermiLab

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory advances the understanding of the fundamental nature of matter and energy by providing leadership and resources for qualified researchers to conduct basic research at the frontiers of high energy physics and related disciplines.

The Batavia, Illinois, laboratory employs about 1,900 people. About 2,000 scientists from universities and laboratories across the world come to Fermilab, the United States’ flagship high-energy physics laboratory to collaborate on experiments that open the doorways to discovery.

Utilizing leading computer technology, underground experiments, telescopes and beams of rare particles, physicists study how the universe formed and the building blocks of matter. Physicists also study the forces of nature that dictate particle interactions such as electricity, magnetism, radiation and gravity. This research  could unveil hidden dimensions, a host of new matter particles, dark energy that is accelerating the expansion of the universe and the inner workings of space and time.

The laboratory partners with high-technology manufacturing firms that build the components for its experiments. Many of the innovate tools developed for particle physics research have been adapted for use in medicine, industry and communication. At times, these tools have served as the seeds of technologies that change the way we work and live such as the World Wide Web and MRI machines.  Visit their website