Science on stage

An interview with playwright Peter Sin Nachtrieb

JOCELIN WEISS

Lights up on a subterranean laboratory on a research university campus.

Jo, a female undergraduate, has just arrived in response to an online post promising a night of “intensely significant coupling”. Unbeknownst to Jo is that Jules, the male marine biology PhD student who wrote the post, is gay, and has invited Jo due to (correctly) predicting an oncoming apocalypse based on years of observing fish behaviour. Therefore, he needs a fertile female with which to re-populate the human race. In the end, it’s unnecessary as two of his fish lay eggs, allowing the chordate evolutionary chain to begin anew. Oh, and one last twist… the entire universe of the subterranean lab is part of a science museum exhibit operated by curator Barbara—asking the audience to play the role of both the scientist and the museum guests by watching the specimens in the tank and how they interact. After a workshop over the summer of 2007, it got picked up by Ars Nova, now one of the top Off-Broadway theatres for bold new work including Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (which then ran on Broadway and garnered twelve Tony nominations, the most of any show that season). From there, boom…if you’ll forgive the pun…exploded, becoming the most performed play in US regional theatre in the 2009-10 season and continuing to regularly appear on college, community, and professional stages today.

Peter Sin Nachtrieb has written many plays, particularly dark comedies that ask scientific questions—and they’ve been performed on stages all across the United States and the world. I sat down (okay, I zoomed) with Nachtrieb on a crisp Friday afternoon, where we talked science, theatre, and bridging the gap between the two.

Q: In the introductory notes for boom, you say something that has resonated with me for a decade—that both biology and theatre are trying to make sense of the world in an epic and intimate way, which is interesting because it seems almost paradoxical, but it isn’t.

A:Yeah!So, I just think the rules are different. They’re both trying to interrogate who we are, and our truth, and I think for me, I really ended up bending towards theatre because I want to be able to ask questions that I can’t answer. And I feel like in science you have to be able to at least attempt to answer the question—but I think even those questions that you can answer by experimental design, they’re often pushing towards the unanswerable question and I think that’s what theatre is about, just leaping into the void a little farther. So, I do think that they’re very interconnected. I wanted to give that poetry, the romance, to the scientific story that also exists in a lot of religions and creation myths.

Brown, my theatre professor Larry Marshall, was running their summer theatre that had sort of a “new play” focus…some people came to see it and I got invited to do a reading at Ars Nova in New York and I think that was the first hint that this play had some traction and some interest beyond what I would normally expect. It happened really quickly—and at the same time a couple of large regional theatres had reached out about it as well. And then it got published and produced all over the place.

what I liked so there’s already some crossover there. I actually have a musical that we premiered in 2019 called “Fall Springs”. It turned into a musical about a town called Fall Springs that’s sinking into the ground because they’re fracking for essential oils underneath it. The daughter of the mayor, Eloise, is a “closeted” scientist—her mom was a geologist who died in a cave accident… this is all like, deliberately inspired by tropes of disaster films.

Q: Had you ever done a musical before that?

A:No, so that was my first full-length musical. It was seven or eight years before we got that premiere production, so y’know, a lot of workshops, a lot of readings…and we’re continuing to work on it.

Q:Is the word boom in reference to the Cambrian explosion, the apocalyptic event, or both?

A:Definitelyboth and probably more things too. It’s the explosions, the radical changes that can happen, whether it’s a comet, a personal epiphany…the title is intentionally lowercase, to create a little tension between the word and how it’s written and I think that’s sort of speaking to the evolutionary story it’s looking at. Sometimes evolution is triggered by major events and sometimes it’s triggered by one little accident that happens to be very successful.

Q:At what point did you realise boom was going to be so successful? Did you have any idea?

A:Honestly, I had no idea…I definitely did not expect when writing it that it was going to be my “moneymaker” so to speak. At

Q:When you originally decided to pursue a theatrical career, was playwriting the original plan?

A:Oh no—it was acting first, then directing, then I was doing a lot of writing as well, a lot of sketch comedy. I think there was a moment where I realised I couldn’t mentally sustain being a hyphen—a something-slash-something-slash-something. It felt like I needed to commit more to writing, so I made a commitment to being a playwright first.

Q:So when you were shifting from hyphenate to mostly playwright, did you intentionally think “I’m going to make plays about science” or was it more unconscious?

A:I think it had always been there. I remember also watching a lot of Monty Python, which has a lot of science-y humour in there, that intellectual humour was always

Q: So, any person who makes art that communicates scientific concepts is a science communicator, right? It is a science communication magazine, after all. What do you think the role is of a science communicator?

A:I think it’s so important—it’s to be a translator, in a way. I think the best science writers are the ones who can incorporate that storytelling feel to it, so they create a narrative. I think that if you can present something in a comic way, you can make a deeper impact in someone’s soul. When you open people with laughter, the ideas can drop in a bit more easily.

Jocelin Weiss is an MSc student in Science Media Production and Co-Editor of Video Content at I, Science. She played Jo in the opening scene of “boom” and then was the marine biology dramaturg for a workshop of the play during her undergraduate studies.

Art therapy: The intersection of creativity and psychology

elicited pride and offered paths to talk about difficult feelings.

“My own experiences using art to process complex emotions have also played a large role in inspiring me to seek greater knowledge about art as a therapeutic mode of healing and communication.”

McGarry began their graduate studies in the summer of 2022, so she is at the beginning of her training. The foundations of graduate studies in art therapy begin with the history of art therapy. Students like McGarry learn how art therapy has developed using Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic therapeutic theories. They also study how prehistoric cave paintings contribute to modes of art and communication in the modern day. Studying art history – specifically the history of creating and making art alongside the history of storytelling – demonstrates that people have been making art for no purpose beyond creating and leaving a legacy of sorts. Expressing emotions and complicated feelings through art is a historical process, and people in the modern era are explicitly harnessing this creative process to improve mental health.

What is art therapy?

According to the British Association of Art Therapists, art therapy is a type of psychotherapy that involves making art to communicate unspoken feelings and experiences. Rua McGarry, an art therapy master’s student in the USA, defines art therapy as:

“a practice that incorporates art into therapy, where clients are given the opportunity to use more than words to process and express themselves. It is also a beautiful opportunity for clients to receive unconditional praise for their skills, build confidence, and connect with themselves.”

Clients need no previous art skills or experience to participate. Art therapy sessions will vary in activity depending on clients’ needs and preferences. For example, art may be made in silence or while in conversation with the art therapist, and the medium and materials used is up to the client. Clay sculpture-making might suit one more than painting with acrylics or watercolors.

Meanwhile, the art therapist might sit quietly and pay attention as the client makes art, or they may join in on the artmaking. Art therapists will then help the client think through the “thoughts, feelings and experiences” that appear when studying the art made or during the creative session.

Can it help cancer patients?

Many people can use art therapy to help with emotional difficulties. Charity organization Cancer Research UK supports art therapy as an option to help cope with cancer symptoms and treatments.

In fact, a study was conducted in the UK in 2019 on how art therapy might impact pain after breast cancer treatments. Previous research has shown that art therapy can improve depression, health, and other factors, so it might have strong potential in being a form of pain treatment. The results are currently unavailable, but this is just one example of art therapy being explored in different fields.

An art therapist in training

Rua McGarry is studying to become an art therapist in the USA.

During her undergraduate studies in studio art and psychology, McGarry interned with licensed art therapists at an art center at a residential camp for people with social, cognitive, and developmental disabilities. Also during university, they gained experience as a social work intern at an intensive outpatient day hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. McGarry worked with children with behavioral and mental health issues who couldn’t participate in their regular routines.

“As a social work intern, I spent a lot of my day calling therapists and trying to establish long-term care to follow discharge, but I also spent any free time coloring, crafting, and being present with the children.”

Through these internships, McGarry was able to witness people regulate their emotions by making art and see just how finished artwork

Art therapy students can also take classes on power, privilege, and oppression, which McGarry is really excited about. “It is so important, especially for therapists who are in a position of power, to be knowledgeable about how their actions [have the potential to be] deeply harmful.”

Supporting those in times of mental health crisis involves understanding individual struggles and the larger external systemic processes that are causing long-lasting distress and damage to people. By studying both art-therapeutic theories and systems of oppression, art therapists are being equipped to help people cope with the complex problems they face in our world.

In the future, McGarry’s dream is to open an art gallery where people experiencing housing insecurity can create and sell art. This unique method of art therapy would allow some of society’s most vulnerable individuals seek mental health support while also offering an opportunity to make money and ease some financial burdens. Furthermore, this gallery space would facilitate informed community support, which would make a positive impact on the wider public as well.

But right now, as she works through her first year of graduate school, McGarry is most excited to learn how to interpret clients’ artwork. “I think we say a lot subconsciously through art.”

COVID-19 and its associated symptoms have raised awareness of anosmia (loss of smell) which is at the centre of my practice research. ‘Anosmia Visualised’ is my response, as an olfactory artist, to the life-changing effects of the condition, representing pungent and appetising foodstuffs as bland and transparent, showing what it must be like without the sense of smell or taste.