Everyman Theatre "Proof" Play Guide

PLAY GUIDE

#bmoreeveryman

A NOTE FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

By Vincent M. Lancisi, Founder, Artistic Director

P

roof is the perfect way to kick off our going; plays theatre audiences can hang their hats on.

2019-20 season of plays. Playwright David As if this weren’t enough we surprise and delight our Auburn has crafted a brilliant story patrons with some of the brightest, most important, filled with twists and turns that makes and riveting new plays by playwrights whose names fascinating connections between genius and are getting more and more familiar as their works insanity, women and mathematics, dementia and are discovered by larger audiences. Caleen Sinnette heredity. It’s a family drama that draws us into a Jennings, Deborah Zoe Laufer, Angelica Chéri, and Molly fascinating world of very Smith Metzler are wowing audiences smart people struggling who are new to their plays. with the big issues in life “DEATH, LEGACY, AND and what comes next.

It has long been a dream of mine to FAMILY LOVE IS AT THE Death, legacy, and family open a second theatre upstairs and CENTER OF PROOF AND love is at the center of Proof we are doing just that. In the spring, THE STAKES COULDN’T and the stakes couldn’t be Everyman patrons will get a chance BE HIGHER” higher. to encounter three new plays in our As you look ahead to the plays that make up the rest of this season, there’s a lot to look forward to. There are plays by great authors like August Wilson, Agatha Christie, Ken Ludwig, and Clifford Odets. There are famous, iconic titles like Murder on the Orient Express and Awake and Sing!. The plays are filled with a wide range of styles that keep entertaining and fascinating in different ways.

These are the famous plays that make for great theatre-

inaugural New Voices Festival in our new upstairs space. It is sure to be exciting to experience the three amazing playwrights and their new works in a festival setting. These authors are making their marks in the American theatre.

Thank you for coming and enjoy the show!

EVERYMAN THEATRE

Vincent M. Lancisi, Founder, Artistic Director presents

PROOF

Playwright DAVID AUBURN Director PAIGE HERNANDEZ

Robert.............................................................................................................. BRUCE RANDOLPH NELSON* Catherine.................................................................................................................................KATIE KLEIGER* Hal............................................................................................................................. JERMEY KEITH HUNTER* Claire.............................................................................................................................. MEGAN ANDERSON*

Set Design

Lighting Design

DANIEL ETTINGER

MARTHA MOUNTAIN

Sound Design

Fight/Intimacy Choreography

SARAH O’HALLORAN

LEWIS SHAW

Props Master

MICHAEL RASINKSI

Costume Design

DAVID BURDICK Dramaturgy

LINDSEY R. BARR

Stage Manager

CAT WALLIS*, JACK RILEY*

Setting: The back porch of a house in Chicago

This production will be performed in two acts with one intermission.

PRODUCTION SPONSORS

VIC & NANCY ROMITA SEASON SPONSORS

PLEASE TURN OFF ALL CELL PHONES. NO TEXTING. NO EATING IN THE THEATRE. Proof is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York.

The videotaping or making of electronic or other audio and/or visual recordings of this production or distributing recordings on any medium, including the internet, is strictly prohibited, a violation of the author’s rights and actionable under United States copyright law. * Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States PROOF PLAY GUIDE | 1

Image courtesy of Joe Mazza

THE PLAYWRIGHT David Auburn

D

avid Auburn is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter who has also worked as a director. His first Off-Broadway play was Skyscraper, which debuted in 1997. His play Proof is among his best-known works, and won him the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as the Tony Award for Best Play.

Proof premiered at the Manhattan Theatre Club in May 2000, and opened at Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre on October 24, 2000. Proof was adapted into a film in 2005, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Hope Davis.

In 2006, he wrote The Lake House, starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock.

In 2012, Auburn’s play, The Columnist, was produced at the Manhattan Theatre Club and directed by Daniel Sullivan.

In 2019, he wrote the crime film Georgetown, directed by Christoph Waltz, starring Waltz, Vanessa Redgrave, Annette Bening, and Corey Hawkins.

His work has been published in Harper’s Magazine and The New England Review. Auburn was born in Chicago and raised in Ohio and Arkansas. He returned to Chicago to attend the University, then studied playwriting at Julliard. He is the recipient of The Guggenheim Foundation Grant, Helen Merrill Playwrighting Award, and Joseph Kesselring Prize for Drama.

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IN HIS WORDS On Getting Into the Business...

I started in college. I didn’t know I wanted to be a writer but I got into a student troupe that did comedy reviews. We did sketch reviews in the style of a Second City kind of thing. I started writing sketches, and I found out I liked doing it and I could. The sketches kind of gradually got longer and longer, and pretty soon I had written a play. I kept going from there.

I moved to New York and started trying to write plays and getting them put on in tiny theaters and eventually I got into the Juilliard playwriting program which was a great kind of incubator—when you’re starting out—it enabled me to write some plays and have them read by wonderful actors at Julliard. And, you know, just gradually developed enough material and met enough people that by the time I had written a full-length play, I could—someone could help me put it on.

On Winning the Pulitzer Prize...

I was minding my own business at home, talking to my wife about what we were going to have for dinner, and call waiting beeped in. So I beeped over and they said “Congratulations!

You’ve won the Pulitzer Prize.” So I beeped back to my wife and told her we won. And we decided to go out to dinner.

On the Writing Process...

It can come easily or be a long labor. (Proof) was a little bit of both. The first draft came very fast and the whole plot and

structure of the play was there from the beginning. I knew what was going to happen in the story and what was going to happen in every scene. So that came quickly. Going back through it and really figuring out the relationship between the characters and sort of putting some meat on the bones of the play’s first draft that took a long time. It was probably about nine months or something like that before I had a draft that’s substantially like the draft that is in performance now.

You write the plays you want to write, or that you need to write, and that impulse comes out of something that is not necessarily logical or rational or analyzable. And then you hope you can get people on board with the play. To like it, to want to act in it, to want to direct it, to want to produce it. So until that moment when you have the first draft done, you try not to question your impulses or assumptions. You just try to work.

On accessibility with Proof...

The real trick of writing the play was figuring out how much math to put in it. This ended up being constrained by the story. Since there is a mystery as to who wrote the mathematical proof, I sort of had to withdraw information when I could so that I didn’t give away the solution to the mystery. I did try to get in as much kind of lore about the mathematical profession as I could. In that I was helped a lot by reading popular books and spending time with mathematicians. We even had some come in to meet and talk with the cast and talk to them. That was really the fun part of doing the play, getting as much of the kind of world of mathematics into the play as possible and putting it up on stage.

On the Rehearsal Process...

I’m pretty closely involved. I don’t feel the need to be there all the time. (Especially when) I have a high degree of trust in what (the director) is doing. But I want to be around. I am there for casting and I am there for table work and I go in and out of rehearsals—popping in and out in an unpredictable way—which keeps them on their toes.

Favorite Moment on Development...

There’s usually a moment when you are writing—before you have finished—when you know that you can finish. You never really know if a play is going to come together. So there is a point when, if you are lucky, you can see the end and that is a really wonderful feeling. And then I love the last day in the rehearsal room. I love the intimacy and the intensity of where the show has arrived. After the main part of the rehearsal but before you have added the technical elements. I love sitting in the rehearsal room on that last day and watching the play being performed.

On the Writer’s Ability to Answer the Right Questions...

I don’t think it’s about answering questions at all. I think it’s about presenting situations that people get themselves mixed up in, in the most honest way that you can, and trying to get onstage in some form the things that bother you, things that trouble you, things that move you, things the illuminate some piece of life for you.

Megan Anderson as Catherine and Carl Schurr as Robert in Everyman’s 2004 production of Proof. Photo by Stan Barouh

THE PLAY SETTING Chicago, Illinois. Present day.

Spans four years in the life of Catherine.

Most of the action takes place on the back porch of the family’s house. Upstairs inside the house is also referenced often as it is the bedroom and the study.

CONFLICT Robert, Catherine’s father, is a mathematical genius and struggled with an unnamed illness that made Catherine his primary caretaker. Robert’s ex-graduate student Hal discovers a paradigm-shifting proof about prime numbers in Robert’s office. Catherine is now faced with proving the proof’s authorship. Additionally throughout, the play explores Catherine’s fear of following in her father’s footsteps, both mathematically and mentally.

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CHARACTERS

Meet the characters of Proof.

CATHERINE played by Katie Kleiger

Robert’s twenty-five-year-old daughter. She has spent several years at home caring for her mentally ill father.

Their relationship, although sometimes antagonistic on the surface, was sustained by strong mutual affection.

Although she is a highly intelligent woman, she has no direction in life.

CLAIRE

played by Megan Anderson

Catherine’s twenty-nine-year-old efficient, practical, and successful sister. Unlike Catherine, she has inherited none of her father’s erratic genius. Instead, she has made a career in New York as a Currency Analyst.

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ROBERT

played by Bruce Randolph Nelson Catherine and Claire’s father, a well renowned mathematician and mentor to Hal. His deteriorating mental state has resulted in Claire dropping out of school to take care of him.

HAL

played by Jeremy Keith Hunter An aspiring mathematician and protege of Robert who connects with Catherine after a recent tragedy. He visits Catherine every day, much to her chagrin.

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TIMELINE Key female figures in male dominated professions.

THE HUMAN COMPUTERS

ADA LOVELACE

Today’s tech world is notoriously male-dominated, with women holding less than 25 percent of science, technology, engineering and math jobs nationally. And yet, the gentlemen of Silicon Valley owe a lot to the 19th-century founder of scientific computing: Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace, or “Ada Lovelace.” Lovelace collaborated with Charles Babbage, the so-called “Father of Computers,” and wrote the world’s first computer coding algorithm.

MID 1800S

MARIE CURIE

Marie Skłodowska-Curie was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman to win twice, the only person to win twice in multiple sciences, and was part of the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995, became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris. She was born Maria Salomea Skłodowska in Warsaw, in what was then the Kingdom of Poland, part of the Russian Empire.

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1903

Six women mathematicians, nicknamed the “human computers,” did most of the programming for one of the world’s first allelectronic computers. The ENIAC, a project run by the U.S. Army in Philadelphia as part of a secret World War II project. By the time they were finished, ENIAC ran a ballistics trajectory—a differential calculus equation— in seconds! Women remained prominent in computer programming throughout the ‘40s and ‘50s, but their numbers decreased as the industry adopted a number of recruiting techniques that favored men in the late 1960s.

1940’s-1950’s

PATSY TAKEMOTO MINK

1964

Patsy Takemoto Mink made history when she was elected to the United States House of Representatives, becoming the first woman of color elected to the national legislature and the first Asian-American congresswoman. She began her political career in 1956 when she was elected to Hawaii’s House of Representatives. Throughout her political career, Mink fought for equal opportunities for women. One of Mink’s greatest legislative achievements was the passage of Title IX of the federal Education Amendments, which ensured equal financing for women’s athletic and academic programs at federally funded institutions. Mink also helped pass the Women’s Education Equity Act in 1974 which funded programs to promote gender equity in schools, to create more educational and job opportunities for women, and to remove sexist stereotypes from school curricula and textbooks.

DR. ELLEN OCHOA

Ochoa joined NASA in 1988 as a research engineer at Ames Research Center and moved to Johnson Space Center in 1990 when she was selected as an astronaut. She became the first Hispanic woman to go to space when she served on the nine-day STS-56 mission aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1993. She has flown in space four times, including STS-66, STS-96 and STS-110, logging nearly 1,000 hours in orbit. Dr. Ellen Ochoa, a veteran astronaut, was the 11th director of the Johnson Space Center. She was JSC’s first Hispanic director, and its second Ochoa has been recognized with NASA’s highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the female director. She is a co-inventor on three patents and author of several technical papers.

Presidential Distinguished Rank Award for senior executives in the federal government.

1985

AVA DUVERNAY

Ava DuVernay direct of Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time, made her the highest grossing black woman director in American box office history. As a writer, director, producer and film distributor she has been recognized for much of her work. This work includes 2012 Sundance Film Festival’s Best Director Prize for her micro-budget film Middle of Nowhere, Selma, making her the first black woman to be nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director. The criminal justice documentary 13TH where she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for her film and her Netflix project When They See Us is currently receiving critical acclaim. She is overseeing production of multiple major productions.

1993

2008

2010

ANN DUNWOODY

WILMA MANKILLER

Wilma Mankiller was born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, on November 18, 1945. Four decades later, in 1985, Mankiller became the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. She sought to improve the nation’s health care, education system and government.

She decided not to seek re-election in 1995 due to ill health. After leaving office, Mankiller remained an activist for Native-American and women’s rights until her death, on April 6, 2010, in Adair County, Oklahoma.

On November 14, 2008, after 33 years of service, Dunwoody was promoted to four-star general—the first American woman to be so honoured.Though she had planned on a career in physical education, she joined the army during her senior year at the State University of New York at Cortland. After graduating in 1975, she received a two-year commission as a second lieutenant at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. She later earned two master’s degrees during her service—in logistics management from the Florida Institute of Technology (1988) and in national resource strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (1995). She became the first female battalion commander for the 82nd Airborne Division in 1992 and the first female general at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 2000. For her service she was decorated a number of times, receiving the Distinguished Service Medal and the Defense Superior Service Medal, among other awards.

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Image courtesy of University of Oregon

MYTH BUSTED: GIRLS CAN’T DO MATH JULY 8, 2018 | By

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.

T

his past week, conventional wisdom was once again turned on its head with the publication of a study by University of Wisconsin-Madison psychology professor Janet Hyde and her colleagues showing that girls are just as good as boys in math. But, as you’ll read on, you’ll learn researchers have known this for years. Why this continues to be “news” or the conventional wisdom is beyond me.

Though girls take just as many advanced high school math courses today as boys, and women earn 48 percent of all mathematics bachelor’s degrees, the stereotype persists that girls struggle with math, says researcher Hyde. Not only do many parents and teachers believe this, but scholars also use it to explain the dearth of female mathematicians, engineers and physicists at the highest levels.

“There just aren’t gender differences anymore in math performance, though.”

The study’s researchers tallied math scores from state exams now mandated annually under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), along with detailed statistics on test takers, including gender, grade level and ethnicity, in 10 states.

Using data from more than 7 million students, they then calculated the effect size, a method for determining the degree of difference between girls’ and boys’ average math scores in standardized units.

The effect sizes they found were basically zero, indicating that average scores of girls and boys were the same.

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“Boys did a teeny bit better in some states, and girls did a teeny bit better in others,” noted Hyde. “But when you average them all, you essentially get no difference.”

NO DIFFERENCE AT HIGHEST MATHEMATICAL LEVELS Some critics argue, however, that even when average performance is equal, gender discrepancies may still exist at the highest levels of mathematical ability.

To see if this was true, the researchers searched for those differences in a second part of the study. For example, they compared the variability in boys’ and girls’ math scores, the idea being that if more boys fell into the top scoring percentiles than girls, the variance in their scores would be greater.

Again, the effort uncovered little difference, as did a comparison of how well boys and girls did on questions requiring complex problem solving. What the researchers did find, though, was a disturbing lack of questions that tested this ability. In fact, they found none whatsoever on the state assessments for NCLB, requiring them to turn to another data source for this part of the study.

What this suggests, says Hyde, is that if teachers are gearing instruction toward these assessments, the performance of both boys and girls in complex problem solving may drop in the future, leaving them ill-prepared for careers in math, science and engineering.

“This skill can be taught in the classroom,” she says, “but we need to motivate teachers to do so by including those items on the tests.”

SAT SCORES MAY BE BIASED TOWARD BOYS The study’s final piece was a review of the granddaddy of all high school math tests, the SAT. The fact that boys score better on it than girls has been widely publicized, contributing to the public’s notion that boys truly are better at math. But Hyde and her co-authors think there’s another explanation: sampling artifact.

For one thing, because it’s administered only to college-bound seniors, the SAT is hardly a random sample of all students.

What’s more, greater numbers of girls take the test now than boys, because more girls are going to college.

“So you’re dipping farther down into the distribution of female talent, which brings down the average score,” says Hyde.

“That may be the explanation for (the results), rather than girls aren’t as good as math.”

“STEREOTYPES ARE VERY, VERY RESISTANT TO CHANGE.” CULTURAL BELIEF IS EVERYTHING Cultural beliefs that suggest boys are better at math than girls are “incredibly influential,” Hyde said, making it critical to question them. “Because if your mom or your teacher thinks you can’t do math, that can have a big impact on your math self concept.”

Still, will all of this be enough to finally shift this long-held attitude? Hyde can’t say, but she remains determined to do so.

“Stereotypes are very, very resistant to change,” she says, “but as a scientist I have to challenge them with data.”

Jacobs, 1991; Pomerantz et al., 2002; for reviews, see American Association of University Women, 1999; Dwyer & Johnson, 1997; Kimball, 1989). Hence, in terms of grades, girls outperform boys in both stereotypically feminine and masculine areas.

So for as long as the “conventional wisdom” has likely existed, psychological research has also shown it to be largely incorrect and wrong.

Where the problem typically occurs is in testing: A somewhat different picture emerges when the performance of girls and boys on achievement tests is examined. As is the case for grades, girls outperform their male counterparts on achievement tests in stereotypically feminine subject areas (e.g., U.S. Department of Education, 2000, 2003b; for reviews, see American Association of University Women, 1999; Entwisle et al., 1997). However, boys perform better than girls on achievement tests in the stereotypically masculine areas of math and science, although boys have recently lost their edge over girls on achievement tests in math, on which the two often obtain similar scores (e.g., U.S. Department of Education, 2000, 2003b; for reviews, see American Association of University Women, 1999; Hyde et al., 1990). Thus, although girls outperform boys on achievement tests in stereotypically feminine areas, they do not do so in stereotypically masculine areas.

So in grades—where schoolwork is done, day-in and day-out— girls rule. But when it comes to achievement tests, like the SAT, girls fall behind.

What this points out to me is obvious—the SAT and tests like it are gender biased. The fact that the test publishers know this and still do not correct for it is, well, odd. Perhaps it’s hubris thinking their tests couldn’t possibly be biased in this manner, or perhaps it’s a more difficult nut to crack than a simple score adjustment.

But whatever the case, let’s put this myth to rest for good— boys and girls are equal in math and have the same or similar potential to achieve in mathematics.

The study was published in the July 25 issue of Science.

HOW DID WE GET IT SO WRONG? The real question left hanging in my mind is how can science get it so wrong for so long? How can an entire generation or two of children grow up thinking that because you’re a girl, you’ll never be very good at math even if you try?

Well, the fact is that researchers have known that girls perform as well as (or outperform) boys in math for years (see, for example, Kenney-Benson et al., 2006): Moreover, despite stereotypical expectations to the contrary, girls also receive equal or higher grades than do boys in stereotypically masculine subject areas, such as math and science (e.g., American College Testing Program, 1997;

EXTENSION PROJECT

Be the Playwright Think back. In Proof the family goes through many obstacles. Identify what they might be.

Using those as an example, think about some obstacles that your family may experience.

Choosing one of these potential obstacles as your central theme: create a script for the scene.

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Image courtesy of Caleb Woods

HARMING YOUR CHILD BY MAKING HIM YOUR PARENT JULY 8, 2018 | By

Samuel López De Victoria, Ph.D.

A

very subtle way to create damage in your child is to turn that child into your parent. This process is called parentification, not to be confused with parenting. Parentification can be defined as a role reversal between parent and child.

A child’s personal needs are sacrificed in order to take care of the needs of the parent(s). A child will often give up his/her own need for comfort, attention, and guidance in order to accommodate to the needs and care of logistical and emotional needs of the parent(s) (Chase, 1999). In parentification the parent gives up what they are supposed to do as a parent and transfers that responsibility to one or more of their children.

Hence the child becomes parentified. That child is the “parental child” (Minuchin, Montalvo, Guerney, Rosman, & Schumer, 1967).

TYPES OF PARENTIFICATION Emotional Parentification: This type of parentification forces the child to meet the emotional needs of their parent and usually other siblings also. This kind of parentification is the most destructive. It robs the child of his/her childhood and sets him/her up to have a series of dysfunctions that will incapacitate him/her in life. In this role, the child is put into the practically impossible role of meeting the emotional and psychological needs of the parent. The child becomes the parent’s confidant. This can especially happen when a woman is not having her emotional needs met by her husband. She can gravitate towards trying to get these needs met from her son. It is as if the son becomes emotionally her surrogate husband. What child does not want to please their parent?

An innocent child is exploited by the parent and it creates a form of emotional and psychological abuse. This type of relationship can be the equivalent of emotional incest.

Parentified children have to suppress their own needs. This comes at the expense of having normal development and causing a lack of a healthy emotional bond. These children will have difficulties having normal adult relationships in their future.

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Instrumental Parentification: When a child takes up this role he/she meets physical or instrumental needs of the family. The child relieves the anxiety experienced normally by a parent that is not functioning correctly. The child may take care of the children, cook, etc. and by this essentially taking over many or all the physical responsibilities of the parent. This is not the same as a child learning responsibility through assigned chores and tasks. The difference is that the parent robs the child of his childhood by forcing him/her to be an adult caregiver with little or no opportunity to just be a kid. The child is made to feel as a surrogate parent over the siblings and parent.

“A VERY SUBTLE WAY TO CREATE DAMAGE IN YOUR CHILD IS TO TURN THAT CHILD INTO YOUR PARENT.” FUTURE PROBLEMS AS ADULTS Intense Anger: Parentified children can become very angry persons. They will tend to have a love-hate relationship with their parent. Sometimes this adult child may not know why they are angry but will be angry at others, especially their friends, boyfriend/girlfriend, spouse, and children. They can have explosive anger or passive anger, especially when another adult happens to put expectations that might trigger their parental wounds of emotional exploitation.

Difficulty with Adult Attachments: The parentified adult child can experience hardship in connecting with friends, spouse, and his/her children. This person could be operating out of deficits in knowing how to attach. Hence he/she could find it difficult to experience healthy intimacy in relationships.

Relationships will tend to be distorted on some level.

Image courtesy of Nik Shuliahin

DEMENTIA, MENTAL HEALTH AND MENTAL ILLNESS ARE DIFFERENT, BUT HAVE THINGS IN COMMON MAY 27, 2015 | By

I

Tommy Dunne

would like to clear up a few points, especially with Mental Health Week approaching: people seem to think that dementia, mental health and mental illnesses are all the same thing, so let’s look at them.

Dementia is caused when the brain is damaged by diseases or strokes; the specific symptoms that someone with dementia experiences will depend on the parts of the brain that are damaged and the disease that is causing the dementia. Dementia is just an umbrella term used to cover over a hundred different types of it; all it does is describe the symptoms that occur when the brain is affected by certain diseases or conditions.

Now, all of us suffer from mental health problems at some time, and such temporary problems do not necessarily lead to mental health illnesses. However, being mentally unhealthy limits our potential as human beings and may lead to more serious problems.

Mental illnesses can be defined as experiencing severe and disperse psychological symptoms to the extent that the normal functioning is seriously impaired – for example, anxiety, depressed mood, obsessive thinking, delusions and hallucinations – whereas mental health is a state of well-being in which the individual recognizes his or her own abilities, and can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make contributions to his or her community.

Mental illness is a recognized, medically-diagnosable illness that results in a significant impairment of the individual’s cognitive, effective, or rational abilities. Mental disorders result from biological developments and psycho-social factors and can be managed using approaches comparable to those of a physical disease – for example, prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation.

Although the terms are often used interchangeably, mental health and mental illness is not the same thing, but they’re not mutually exclusive.

The fundamental difference between mental health and mental illness is that everyone has some level of mental health all of the time, just like physical health, which is possible to be without. Mental illness is like diabetes, heart disease, or a broken leg: you can live with it and recover from it, although recovery is not an end state. It does not necessarily mean that the individual no longer has depression, schizophrenia, or other mental illnesses; recovery means that the person has stabilized and regained their role in society.

We need to learn more about mental health and mental illnesses, as it is crucial in dispelling stigma, stopping prejudice, and promoting early identification and effective treatment.

Being mentally healthy doesn’t mean that you don’t have a mental health problem: if you’re in good mental health, you can make the most of your potential – you can cope with life.

You can play a full part in your family, workplace, community, and among friends. Some people call mental health emotional health or well-being, and it’s just as important as physical health.

Mental health is everyone’s business.

We have, all, times when we feel down or stressed, or frightened; most of the time, those feelings pass, but sometimes they develop into a more serious problem, and that could happen to any one of us. Everyone is different. You may bounce back from a setback well; someone else may feel weighed down by it for a very long time. Your mental health doesn’t always stay the same. It can change as circumstances change and as you weave through different stages of your life.

There’s a stigma attached to dementia and mental health problems. This means that people feel uncomfortable about them and don’t talk about them much. Many people don’t feel comfortable talking about their feelings.

So remember: dementia, mental heath and mental illness are different things, but have things in common.

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Image courtesy of Fatherly

THE DEATH OF A PARENT AFFECTS EVEN GROWN CHILDREN PSYCHOLOGICALLY AND PHYSICALLY AUGUST 8, 2019 | By

Joshua A. Krisch

T

he death of a parent, the loss of a father or mother, is one of the most emotional and universal human experiences. If a person doesn’t know what it’s like, they most likely will one day. But just because the passing of a parent happens to almost everyone doesn’t make it any easier.

The incident is not just traumatic, it also informs and changes their children biologically and psychologically.

It can even make them sick.

“In the best-case scenario, the death of a parent is anticipated and there’s time for families to prepare, say their goodbyes, and surround themselves with support,” psychiatrist Dr. Nikole Benders-Hadi says. “In cases where a death is unexpected, such as with an acute illness or traumatic accident, adult children may remain in the denial and anger phases of the loss for extended periods of time … [leading to] diagnosis of major depressive disorder or even PTSD, if trauma is involved.”

There’s no amount of data that can capture how distinctly painful and powerful this grief is. That said, there are a number of psychological and brain-imaging studies that demonstrate the magnitude of this loss. The posterior cingulate cortex, frontal cortex, and cerebellum are all brain regions mobilized during grief processing, research shows.

These regions are involved in storing memories and dwelling on the past, but they’re also involved in regulating sleep and appetite.

In the short term, neurology assures us that loss will trigger physical distress. In the long-term, grief puts the entire body at risk. A handful of studies have found links between unresolved grief and hypertension, cardiac events, immune disorders, and even cancer. It is unclear why grief would EVERYMAN THEATRE | 12

trigger such dire physical conditions, but one theory is that a perpetually activated sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight response) can cause long-term genetic changes. These changes — less pre-programmed cell death, dampened immune responses — may be ideal when a bear is chasing you through the forest and you need all the healthy cells you can get. But this sort of cellular dysregulation is also how cancerous cells metastasize, unchecked.

While the physical symptoms are relatively consistent, the psychological impacts are all but unpredictable. In the 12 months following the loss of a parent, the American Psychological Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders considers it healthy for adults who have lost their parents to experience a range of contradictory emotions, including sadness, anger, rage, anxiety, numbness, emptiness, guilt, remorse, and regret. It is normal to withdraw from friends and activities; it is normal to throw oneself into work.

As ever, context matters. Sudden, violent death puts survivors at higher risk of developing a grief disorder, and when an adult child has a fractured relationship with a parent, the death can be doubly painful — even if the bereaved shuts down and pretends not to feel the loss. “Coping is less stressful when adult children have time to anticipate parental death,” Omojola says. “Not being able to say goodbye contributes to feeling depressed and angry.” This may explain why studies have shown that young adults are more affected by parental loss than middle-aged adults. Presumably, their parents died unexpectedly, or at least earlier than average.

Gender, of both the parent and child, can especially influence the contours of the grief response. Studies suggest that daughters have more intense grief responses than sons,

but men who lose their parents may be slower to move on.

“Males tend to show emotions less and compartmentalize more,” Carla Marie Manly, a clinical psychologist and author, told Fatherly.

“These factors do affect the ability to accept and process grief.” Studies have also shown that loss of a father is more associated with the loss of personal mastery — purpose, vision, belief, commitment, and knowing oneself. Losing a mother, on the other hand, elicits a more raw response.

“Many people report feeling a greater sense of loss when a mother dies,” Manly says.“This can be attributed to the often close, nurturing nature of the mother-child relationship.”

At the same time, the differences between losing a father and a mother represent relatively weak trends. “Complicated bereavement can exist no matter which parent is lost,” Benders-Hadi says. “More often, it is dependent on the relationship and bond that existed with the parent.”

Grief becomes pathological, according to the DSM, when the bereaved are so overcome that they are unable to carry on with their lives. Preliminary studies suggest this occurs in about 1 percent of the healthy population, and about 10 percent of the population that had previously been diagnosed with a stress disorder. “A diagnosis of adjustment disorder is made within three months of the death if there is a ‘persistence of grief reactions’ exceeding what’s normal for the culture and the religion,” Omojola says. “In this situation, the grieving adult has severe challenges meeting social, occupational, and other expected, important life functions.”

Even adults who are able to go to work and put on a brave face may be suffering a clinical condition if they remain preoccupied with the death, deny that their parent has died, or actively avoid reminders of their parents, indefinitely.

This condition, known as persistent complex bereavement disorder, is a trickier diagnosis to pin down (the DSM labeled it a “condition for further study”) Elisabeth Goldberg works with grieving adults as a relationship therapist in New York City, and she has seen the toll that long-term grieving can take on a marriage.

Specifically, Goldberg suggests a (somewhat Freudian) link between losing a parent and cheating on a spouse. “I see many affairs as manifestations of unresolved grief about losing a parent,” Goldberg says. “The adult child stays in a state of disbelief, and rejects reality in many ways in order to feed the delusion that the parent is still alive. The grieving child needs a new attachment figure, that’s the psyche trying to reconcile the denial and grief. So rather than say, ‘My mother died,’ the grieving child can say, ‘While Mommy’s away, I will play with someone other than my spouse.’ ” In more concrete — and dire — terms, unresolved grief can spiral into anxiety and depression. This is especially true when the parent dies by suicide, according to Lyn Morris, a licensed therapist and VP at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services. “Adults who lose a parent to suicide often struggle with complex emotions such as guilt, anger, and feelings of abandonment and vulnerability,” she told Fatherly. Indeed a 2010 study out of Johns Hopkins University confirmed that losing a parent to suicide makes children more likely to die by suicide

themselves.

How to cope in a healthy way remains an active area of scientific inquiry. Ross Grossman, a licensed therapist who specializes in adult grief, has identified several “main distorted thoughts” that infect our minds when we face adversity. Two of the most prominent are “I should be perfect” and “they should have treated me better” — and they tug in opposite directions. “These distorted thoughts can easily arise in the wake of a loved one’s death,” Grossman says.

When a son or daughter reflects on how he or she should have treated a deceased parent, “I should be perfect” thoughts tend to rise to the surface. Grossman’s patients often feel that they should have done more and, “because they didn’t do any or all of these things, they are low-down, dirty, awful, terrible human beings,” he says. “These kinds of thoughts, if left undisputed, usually result in a feeling of low self-worth, low self-esteem, shame, self-judgment, selfcondemnation.”

On the opposite extreme, patients sometimes blame their deceased parents for not treating them properly, and never making amends. This is similarly unhealthy. “The usual result of this is deep resentment, anger, rage,” Grossman says.

“They may have genuine, legitimate reasons to feel mistreated or abused. In these situations, it’s not always the death of the parent but the death of the possibility of reconciliation, of rapprochement and apology from the offending parent.”

“The possibility has died along with the person.”

In extreme cases, therapy may be the only way to get a grieving son or daughter back on his or her feet. But time, and an understanding spouse, can go a long way toward helping adults get through this unpleasant, yet ubiquitous, chapter in their lives. “Husbands can best support their wives by listening,” Manly says. “Men often feel helpless in the face of their wives’ emotions, and they want to fix the situation.

A husband can do far more good by sitting with his wife, listening to her, holding her hand, taking her for walks, and — if she desires — visiting the burial site.”

EXTENSION PROJECT

Become a Set Designer A ground plan is a scenic view, drawn by the set designer, to show the set production in relation to the theatre stage. It is drawn in a bird’s eye view (from sky). This helps give the idea how big and wide the stage should look.

Using a ruler, a blank white piece of paper (no line paper), and a pencil, create a ground plan of the set and stage from Proof. Then add the audience, exit doors, and the entire Everyman space!

PROOF PLAY GUIDE | 13

Image courtesy of Jessica Rockowitz

FAMILY DYNAMICS AND THE ROLES WE PLAY JUNE 30, 2015 | By

Joshua Miles

WHAT ARE FAMILY DYNAMICS? Family dynamics are the patterns and interactions we have with different members of our family. Each family has a unique set of dynamics, which impact our development, ideas, and ways of behaving, as well as how we interact with others.

The word ‘family’ is a single word with multiple meanings. It represents many different things and holds within it a wide range of feelings, thoughts and ideas. Even where there has been little contact with a family, we are all influenced by the dynamics we experienced in our early lives.

within the context of the relationship, where both influence the other. Family systems theory aims to assess these patterns of interactions, and look at why things may be happening, instead of why they happened.

Family systems theory considers the nature of relationships to be bidirectional and moves away from seeking blame of one person for the dynamic of the relationship. The exception to this theory is within abusive relationships, where the responsibility and blame lay clearly with the perpetrator of the abuse.

Our family dynamics impact on how we see ourselves in later life, influence our relationships, how we interact with the world as well as our well-being. However we personally define family, it is inherent that there will be complex feelings and issues held within the relationships in our familial circle.

Within family systems theory, behaviours are believed to arise due to the interrelated nature and connectedness of various family members. For example, to seek understanding of a young person in distress, their behaviour would be viewed through the lens of their family’s behaviours and the family system rather than looking at the young person in isolation.

A BRIEF EXPLANATION OF FAMILY SYSTEMS THEORY

WHAT INFLUENCES OUR FAMILY DYNAMICS?

Traditional individual talk therapies often focus on issues and problems within a linear fashion, meaning that ‘event’ A caused ‘problem’ B. Talking therapies explore the historic facts, feelings and ideas relating to an issue, so as to gain an understanding of what caused the problem, and identify what may be needed in order for the person to move forward and progress.

The influences of family dynamics will, of course, vary from family to family, and will often include previous generations, as well as the current living generations. Socio economic factors, class, culture and geographic location also play key roles in how family dynamics are established, maintained and fractured. Below are some common factors that may influence the development of family dynamics.

Family systems theory, however, views issues and problems within a circular fashion, using what is described as a systemic perspective. Meaning that the event and the problem exist EVERYMAN THEATRE | 14

• The nature of your parent’s relationship.

• A parent who was absent for a period of your life.

Image courtesy of Sebastian Leon Prado

Image courtesy of Jessica Rockowitz

• A mix of different family members, such as aunts, uncles or cousins, living under the same roof.

• External events which affected the family such as severe illness, trauma, death, unemployment or homelessness.

children within this role can often find themselves remaining as the child within their family rather than moving towards behaving appropriately for their age.

ROLES WITHIN FAMILY DYNAMICS

THE SCAPEGOAT—often one family member, who experiences difficulties, is seen as the black sheep of the family while other members are viewed as good or well behaved. This person can become a visible symptom of the troubled family system. For example, one child being labelled as mentally ill, even though their behaviour is adaptive and a means of survival to deal with and live within a fractured or troubled family system. When we use family systems theory to examine an example like the one listed above, we can see that this member of the family could be supported by others to manage and cope in ways which were less detrimental.

Within the dynamics of a family, we all have different roles and functions. These various roles can come about because of how our family dynamics play out, or due to our own individual choices and personalities. The way we choose to interact and the characters we sometimes play can be a conscious choice, but can also happen unconsciously. Some of the different roles we find ourselves playing within a family dynamic are listed below.

THE PROBLEM AS THE ROLE—a family member with a problem or issue, may play the role in drawing attention away from much deeper issues within the family and provide the family dynamic with distraction. This distraction serves as a way to provide an illusion of harmony, and parents in a family dynamic such as this, may reinforce the apparent bad behaviour of a child so as to avoid addressing their own relationship difficulties and keep the family together.

PEACEKEEPER—this role can often unintentionally be played by young people or children. They may often mediate, or reduce conflict between parents who are arguing or experiencing conflict. The peacekeeper seeks to reduce tension, alleviate discourse and move the family back into a more harmonious dynamic. The role of the peacekeeper can occur due to unresolved and unconscious anxiety, fear or worry about a potential family breakdown. Young people or

Our family systems are unique, fragile and fluid.

Understanding our position within not only our system but within the wider community, can provide us with a deeper and more enriched way of looking at our interactions with others, as well as how we view and treat ourselves.

• Dynamics of previous generations.

• Whether you had a parent who was particularly soft, or strict.

• Number of children in your family.

• Personalities of the members of your family.

• Boundaries are now your lifeline for a happy existence.

PROOF PLAY GUIDE | 15

Image courtesy of Tatiana Kolesnikova

WHY ARE THERE SO FEW WOMEN MATHEMATICIANS? NOVEMBER 4, 2016 | By

Jane C. Hu

HOW A CORROSIVE CULTURE KEEPS WOMEN OUT OF LEADERSHIP POSITIONS ON MATH JOURNALS

A

s soon as mathematician Chad Topaz ripped the plastic off his copy of the American Mathematical Society’s magazine Notices, he was disappointed. Staring back at him from the cover were the faces of 13 of his fellow mathematicians—all of them men, and the majority of them white. “Highlighting all this maleness and whiteness—what is the message that is being sent to the membership?” he wondered.

Topaz, a professor at Macalester College, knew that his field had a gender problem. In mathematics, just 15 percent of tenure-track positions are held by women, one of the lowest percentages among the sciences, along with computer science (18 percent), and engineering (14 percent). “Softer” sciences tend to have more women in tenure-track positions, like in psychology (55 percent women) and biology (34 percent). Despite training in a field with so few women, Topaz had the unusual experience of having women as both his Ph.D. and postdoctoral advisors. “They rarely talked about representation issues, but I noticed that they were often the only women in the room,” he said. Topaz grew increasingly interested in understanding why women were so underrepresented in his field, and then had a daughter, who he says loves math and science. “At some point I thought, I need to be doing something active to contribute to addressing this problem.” So Topaz and the Macalester computer scientist Shilad Sen set to work by looking at a new metric of academic success: the editorial boards of academic journals.

EVERYMAN THEATRE | 16

Who’s on an editorial board may seem like an esoteric statistic, but Topaz and Sen argue that it’s a proxy for women’s leadership in a field. Think of the editors as the gatekeepers of science: They direct journals’ peer-review process, the backbone of modern science. Editors call the shots on which papers get published in their journals—and this affects the ultimate direction of a field.

On an individual level, being asked to join an editorial board is an important career milestone for academics. “Editorial boards are a great chance for professional networking,” says Sen. “It’s important for tenure and promotion, and is seen as a prestigious honor.”

And Topaz and Sen’s research shows that women are being left out of these opportunities. In their analysis of 13,000 editorship positions on 435 math journals, they found that just under 9 percent of all math journal editorial positions are held by women. The median journal has an editorial board with 7.6 percent of editorships held by women, but one in ten journals have no female editors at all.

These numbers show that something is going on in the field of mathematics, but more research is necessary to understand what’s driving the disparity. One factor Topaz and Sen believe contributes to it is what they call the “brilliance effect”: the belief that natural brilliance or knack for a subject drives success, rather than hard work or persistence. And, sadly, women are less likely to be seen as brilliant. One recent study that analyzed reviews of professors on the site RateMyProfessors.com found that in fields where the

words “brilliant” and “genius” were less likely to be attributed to women, women were less likely to reach upper levels of academia. “The implication is that to be a mathematician you have to be brilliant, and women are not brilliant,” says Topaz.

Even when women are brilliant, their accomplishments may be viewed differently by colleagues. Maria Emelianenko, a mathematician at George Mason University, told me about a colleague at another university who experienced this on her first day as an assistant professor. “When she arrived, she had a sign on her door that said ‘Mrs. Smith’—but the rest of the signs in the department all read ‘Dr. So-andSo.’ She’s on the same level as her other colleagues, but somehow they referred to her differently.” Other times, female mathematicians’ accomplishments are chalked up to the “gender card.” Mathematician Sarah Brodsky says that after she was awarded the National Science Foundation’s prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship, there were colleagues who told her that she’d won the award only because she’s a woman. This kind of thinking—that women’s professional accomplishments are due to tokenism, not their abilities or hard work—plays a role in why women may be overlooked for leadership roles in their field, like editorial positions. “[Editorial boards] are looking for someone who is mature, has expertise, and can review articles and point toward directions that elucidate deficiencies in others’ work,” says Emelianenko. “They want to be assured that this person is very well-qualified. But this doubt—“this lady has published a lot and gotten some grants, but it’s because she’s a woman”—may hurt women.”

It could also be the case that women in math are producing less work compared to their male colleagues. Working women shoulder more of housework and child-rearing responsibility than men, which could have a real affect on their output.

Emelianenko says she’s seen colleagues struggle to balance family responsibilities with work. “One colleague had a C-section and had to teach in a week,” she says. “She didn’t think she could fight for her rights, because [the colleague’s department] had no departmental policies about it, and she was on the tenure track, so if she refused to do it she worried she would not get the job she wanted.”

But even if some women are producing less work—or God forbid, taking a few days off to have a baby—that says nothing about the quality of their work. “I don’t have time to write 10 articles a year, but say I write two—two that are not incremental papers, but something deeply interesting and thorough,” says Emelianenko. But academic environments often reward quantity of output over quality.

Gender disparities may be especially pervasive in mathematics due of the culture of the field. It has traditionally been a male-dominated field, and it can feel like an old boys’ club to many women. Brodsky tells me when she entered her graduate program, she was one of six women in a cohort of 40. She was horrified to learn from a classmate that her male colleagues had exclusive social outings. “They would get beers after work and rank the six of us in terms of who was hottest and most fuckable,” she says. After discovering this, it was hard to feel like she was being taken seriously. “That’s

one good example of why I could never feel like an actual colleague—[we women] are just gossip to discuss.”

Of course, sexist behavior and harassment are not specific to math. But there are other aspects to the culture of math that contribute to an environment that undervalues women, like its reverence for objectivity. “Part of what sets math apart from other fields is the belief, on the part of the practitioners, in the ultimate perfection of their system,” says Moon Duchin, a mathematician at Tufts University. In academia, and especially math, objectivity is an ideal quality: scholars must separate themselves from their work. But humans, by nature, make subjective and biased decisions even if they are striving for objectivity. Those committed to scholarly objectivity may pass off their personal beliefs as ultimate truths without recognizing their own biases may have crept in. Duchin recalls a conference she attended as a second-year graduate student where mathematicians were ‘objectively’ rating colleagues.

“The game of the evening involved naming two people, and everyone had to say who was better. That’s a particularly crass example,” she says, but it illustrates the pervasive belief in the field that there’s an objective way to measure who is a “good” mathematician. “If that’s your ideological commitment, then of course you’re going to discount implicit bias.”

Topaz, Sen, Duchin, Emelianenko, and Brodsky all shared ideas about how their field could eliminate barriers for women, from anonymizing paper submissions to reduce bias associated with male or female names and developing better parental leave policies to making a point of including multiple women on editorial boards. “A lot of editorial boards have one woman, and not a lot have two. One can be a token, but the move from one to two could be huge,” says Duchin.

But addressing the disparity will take more than changing journal practices; many mathematicians say they’ve seen firsthand how gender disparities begin early in students’ education. Sen says it’s common in his own classroom.

“Women come into my introduction to computer science class and when they don’t quite get something, they think, I don’t get this, it looks like everyone else is getting this, I’m just not good at this,” he notices. But men, he says, just figure everyone else is equally stumped. “They think ‘I don’t get this, everyone else in the class doesn’t get it either.’” Studies have found similar differences in male and female confidence in math with high school and even elementary school students.

Sen says he thinks it’s important to address these attitudes with his students, and normalize the idea that people need time to digest new concepts. “The biggest impact I can make is in my classroom, especially in the intro levels, where the culture is coagulating.”

Sen and Topaz are hopeful that more participation from women, especially in top ranks, will improve the field. “There’s research that shows that the best decision making happens when you have a diverse group of people,” says Sen. “If half the world’s population is not participating in math, you’re missing out on half of the really good people.

PROOF PLAY GUIDE | 17

Image courtesy of WGLT

CURTAINS UP ON CAREERS:

DIRECTOR Interview with Director, Paige Hernandez

Where are you from originally and when did you first develop an interest in theatre?

I am from Baltimore, MD. A city girl through and through. In elementary and middle school, I got involved in dramatic reading competitions, debate teams...forensics etc. I was so expressive that judges and coaches kept suggesting that I look into theater. My parents enrolled me into Arena Players for their summer camp and productions. After that I was recommended to the TWIGS program at Baltimore School for the Arts which eventually led to admission to the school.

Haven’t looked back since.

When and why did you decide to pursue theatre professionally? How has your background shaped your career path?

Baltimore School for the Arts cemented my drive to pursue theatre professionally. After that, I choose to get a degree in theatre and broadcast journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park. I realized early on that the more I excelled in my craft the better I did in academics. My path to success has always looked like the connection to education through theatre.

What is the directors role in shaping the production during rehearsal?

First and foremost, my role is to create a safe and creative space for all involved. I like to set the tone and environment that will best support collaboration and elevated risks. Once this space is established and nurtured, then everyone can execute a cohesive vision to bring that play to life. After that, for me, it’s about confirming choices, emotions, intentions and scene interactions. Our artistic journey should be reflected in the story so that the audience is handled with care as they experience the same story.

Dinner with Friends takes place in six different locations.

How do you approach “dressing” each world?

Each setting becomes its own little stage in a way. Even though the settings entirely change from scene to scene each set needs to be treated as its own fully realized space. The challenge is figuring out a way to do that where things can easily be moved around and reset every show. I work closely with the Stage Management team to decide where the best EVERYMAN THEATRE | 18

places for set dressing are, and what things can be made into single units instead of separate pieces. For example, a lamp may be attached to a table so it can all move as a single piece, or a pile of laundry is actually all pinned together so it looks like a loose pile but can be cleared all at once instead of item by item.

What do you think makes this show a modern classic?

There’s a lot of components of this show that so many love.

The writing is just stellar. Great suspense, twists and turns, realistic dialogue and a touch of mysticism. Themes of math, mental health, gender roles, family ties and more are relatable and thought provoking. This is one of those plays that can be performed by young, old, any race, any culture. Love that this play is a true slice of life.

Although this show takes place in Chicago, how do you find the Baltimore in it?

Many of the same working class, blue collar issues found in Chicago are also found in Baltimore. This story could easily take place in a Baltimore back yard.... in a home that was passed down in the family... with a house that’s aging and a neighborhood that’s changing but stepped deep in tradition.

Where do you see yourself in this play?

I see a lot of myself in Catherine. Her tenacity, intelligence, and her role as her dad’s caregiver really resonate with me.

What advice might you give someone interested in directing theatre in the future?

I love the quote , “Diversity is a seat at the table, inclusion is having a voice, belonging is being heard”. Make sure that everyone in your process (actors, designers and administrative staff) feels like your rehearsal room is a place where any and everyone feels heard.

What inspires you about this play?

I really appreciate the intersection of life legacy, gender, mental health and family. The play makes you wonder: In what health are you family relationships in? Are you doing enough for your own self care? Are you on a path to create your life’s legacy? To share it or to pass it on? PROOF inspires me to look inward to examine your my own meaningful intersections.

GLOSSARY Ellis Avenue: A residential street in Chicago

Prime Numbers: Any integer other than 0 or ± 1 that is not divisible without a remainder by any other integers except ± 1 and ± the integer itself Graphomaniac: Someone with a compulsive urge to write.

Diversey: Major street on the North side of Chicago.

Imaginary number: i- Imaginary numbers are numbers that are made from combining a real number with the imaginary unit, called i. They are defined separately from the negative real numbers in that they are a square root of a negative real number instead of a positive real number.

Game theory: The analysis of a situation involving conflicting interests (as in business or military strategy) in terms of gains and losses among opposing players.

Algebraic geometry: a branch of mathematics concerned with describing the properties of geometric structures by algebraic expressions.

Non-linear operator theory: a real-valued function of a real argument other than a linear function.

Astrophysics: a branch of astronomy dealing especially with the behavior, physical properties and dynamic processes of celestial objects and phenomena.

Proof: A mathematical proof is an inferential argument for a mathematical statement. In the argument, other previously established statements, such as theorems, can be used. In principle, a proof can be traced back to self-evident or assumed statements, known as axioms, along with accepted rules of inference.

Protege: one who is protected or trained or whose career is furthered by a person of experience, prominence, or influence.

Institutionalized: placed in the care of a specialized institution, for example, a mental institution.

Jojoba: a shrub or small tree of the box family of southwestern North America with edible seeds that yield a valuable liquid wax used especially in cosmetics.

Organic chemistry: a branch of chemistry that is concerned with carbon and especially carbon compounds that are found in living things.

Amphetamines: a compound that is a stimulant of the central nervous system, is often abused illicitly and is used clinically to treat attention deficit disorder and narcolepsy and formerly as a short-term appetite suppressant.

Speed: is a potent and addictive central nervous system stimulant, chemically related to amphetamine, but with greater central nervous system side effects.

Sophie Germain: Marie-Sophie Germain was a French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher.

Terrors of the French revolution: The Reign of Terror, or The Terror, refers to a period during the French Revolution after the First French Republic was established.

Gauss: Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss was a German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and sciences.

Northwestern: Northwestern University is a private research university based in Evanston, Illinois.

Currency analysts: Currency analysts spend their careers assessing the strength of different currencies. Their job involves a lot of research and the ability to stay up to date on relevant news and economic information that may impact a currency’s value.

Restraints, lithium, electroshock: previously used treatments for patients in mental institutions.

Elliptic curves: In mathematics, an elliptic curve is a plane algebraic curve defined by an equation of the form which is non-singular; that is, the curve has no cusps or self-intersections.

Modular forms: In mathematics, a modular form is an analytic function on the upper half-plane satisfying a certain kind of functional equation with respect to the group action of the modular group, and also satisfying a growth condition.

DEEPER DIVE women in math

https://medium.com/however-mathematics/five-rebel-women-mathematicians-who-changed-the-world-3628b47bfda0 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/girls-can-do-math-duh-12454048/

women in male dominated professions https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/female-scientists-arent-that-rare-6136986/ https://www.inc.com/jackelyn-ho/these-male-dominated-industries-have-seen-biggest-gains-in-women-representation-according-to-40-yearlinkedin-study.html

father daughter relationships https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inside-out/201307/how-dads-shape-daughters-relationships https://www.extension.harvard.edu/inside-extension/role-fathers-childhood-development https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-dads-affect-their-daughters-into-adulthood

caretaking https://www.cancer.org/treatment/caregivers/what-a-caregiver-does/who-and-what-are-caregivers.html https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-its-like-to-be-a-car_b_10931538 http://www.strongbonds.jss.org.au/workers/families/dynamics.html

math in art https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/artist-mathematical-concepts https://www.sciencealert.com/7-times-mathematics-became-art-and-blew-our-minds https://im-possible.info/english/articles/escher_math/escher_math.html http://www.ams.org/publicoutreach/feature-column/fcarc-art4 PROOF PLAY GUIDE | 19

YOUR THOUGHTS...

Use this space to jot down any thoughts that arise before, during, and/or after the performance. You can bring this with you to the theater and log your thoughts during intermission or on the bus

after the show. Then, bring this to the Post-Show Workshop to share with a guest artist.

I was surprised by/when…

The most memorable scene was when… because...

I was impacted most by the scene where...

I was confused by… or I wonder why...

SOURCES

Sources used to curate this Play Guide include...

https://www.gradesaver.com/author/david-auburn https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/david-auburn https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/pulitzer-prize-winner-david-auburns-proof https://stagebuddy.com/theater/theater-feature/tony-winner-david-auburn-proof-discusses-latest-lost-lake https://bigthink.com/women-and-power/ten-extraordinary-women-in-male-dominated-fields https://www.huffpost.com/entry/male-jobs-pioneered-women_n_5681903?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJC-3Ad8fIcbYwriHK1B5HdkjiPmiJr_hKzwMS6mm0lHdm1MEBOOXxmF8RC4CsHriz4bhq4G0cMI6DbckpAL0JWUrqLh8FshJvk1YX-IG6jnafRsiq-AMmYKgsmyxiVrz5Ke4qALgfAatgMu90OAN4g08DyuiIvM_-ZzLn_29c3Y https://www.biography.com/activist/wilma-mankiller https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1903/marie-curie/biographical/ https://www.biography.com/filmmaker/kathryn-bigelow https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ann-E-Dunwoody https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/math-women/506417/ https://psychcentral.com/blog/myth-busted-girls-cant-do-math/ https://psychcentral.com/blog/harming-your-child-by-making-him-your-parent/ https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellors/joshua-miles https://dementiadiaries.org/entry/2173/dementia-mental-health-and-mental-illness-are-different-things-but-have-things-in-common https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/parent-death-psychological-physical-effects/ THIS PLAY GUIDE CREATED BY Genna Styles, Education Program Manager Sean Laraway, Education Apprentice Erin Gruidos-Grimel, Summer Community Engagement Intern Elijah Nichols, Teen Educator Mel Prather, Graphic Designer EVERYMAN THEATRE | 20

EVERYMAN THEATRE IS LOCATED AT 315 W. Fayette St. Baltimore, MD 21201 Box Office 410.752.2208 Administration 443.615.7055 Email boxoffice@everymantheatre.org

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT If you have questions about the Play Guide, contact our Education Department at education@everymantheatre.org or 443.615.7055 x7142

THEATRE ETIQUETTE When you come and see a play, remember to...

Respectfully enjoy the show.

While we encourage you to laugh when something is funny, gasp if something shocks you, and listen intently to the action occurring, please remember to be respectful of the performers and fellow audience members.

Please turn off or silence all electronic devices before the performance begins.

There is no texting or checking your cell phone during the show. The glow of a cell phone can and will be seen from stage.

Photography inside the theatre is strictly prohibited.

Food and drinks are not allowed in the theatre.

Food and drinks should be consumed in the Everyman lobby before or after the show, or during intermission.

Be Present.

Talking, moving around, checking your phone, or engaging in other activities is distracting to everyone and greatly disrupts the performance’s energy.

Stay Safe.

Please remain seated and quiet during the performance. Should you need to leave for any reason, re-entrance to the theatre is at the discretion of the house manager. In case of an emergency, please follow the instructions shared by Everyman staff members.

Continue the conversation.

After your performance, find Everyman Theatre on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and use #bmoreeveryman to tell us what you thought!

In this production, please be aware of...

Strong Language and Racial Slurs Simulated Physical Violence Strong themes

CURRICULAR TIE-INS From the stage to the classroom...

COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.2 Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.3 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1 Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11-12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1.C Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that probe reasoning and evidence; ensure a hearing for a full range of positions on a topic or issue; clarify, verify, or challenge ideas and conclusions; and promote divergent and creative perspectives.

NATIONAL CORE ARTS STANDARDS Anchor Standard #6. Convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work.

Anchor Standard #7. Perceive and analyze artistic work.

Anchor Standard #8. Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.

Anchor Standard #11. Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural and historical context to deepen understanding.

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DESIGN YOUR OWN PRODUCTION IMAGERY For each production at Everyman, our Marketing Department works with an artist to create imagery that conveys a visual story.

What story does the Proof artwork on the cover convey?

Now it’s your turn! Think about the play, Proof, and design a new image to brand the show. Keep in mind, this image could be used on poster, advertisements, billboards, television, on social media, etc.

Share your reactions to the performance using #bmoreeveryman.

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