The lifeblood of theatre pulses with love, hardship, and self-discovery. But with science... not so much. Laboratory-borne concepts, scientific jargon, and nitty-gritty details can sometimes seem impossible to translate into art, especially on the stage.
Image: Pearson Scott Foresman
Wikimedia Commons
But boom, a one-act piece from playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb now in its second season of performances, does just that. boom addresses ecological succession and evolutionary biology while the play's characters confront a cataclysmic comet strike that threatens to wipe out life on earth. "I was a double major in biology and theatre at Brown [University]," said Nachtrieb, sitting on the stage at the Flashpoint Theater Company in Philadelphia, where boom is running until November 21. "Science, particularly biology, colors my worldview, but art and theatre is what I practice. Writing boom was my attempt to reconcile both these interests into one evening." The play revolves around the...
boomJo: I'd like some bourbon... on the rocks. Jules: That's one of the truths of biologists. We always have ice. To freeze the things we kill... and for drinksboomThe Ancestor's TaleThe universe could so easily have remained lifeless and simple... just physics and chemistry, just the scattered dust of the cosmic explosion that gave birth to time and space. The fact that it did not... the fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing... is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justiceboomWonderful Life,boomHunter GatherersOh the Nano You'll Know!Hunters GatherersOh the Nano You'll Know!boom



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