From left, Dr. Heather Berlin, Jake Brasch, Carla Ching, Dr. Evelynn Hammonds, Lulu Miller
What are the great untold stories about science? How could they become a play? How is an EST/Sloan play different?
PLAYWRIGHTS! JOIN US ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2025 AT 8:00 PM ON ZOOM FOR THE 2025 EST/SLOAN ARTIST CULTIVATION VIRTUAL EVENT
The EST/Sloan Artist Cultivation Event is the annual far-ranging and free-wheeling discussion among scientists, science writers, and playwrights about science, storytelling, and what makes plays work. This year’s event will be online and is free for any playwright interested in developing a play about science or technology. Registration is required. Once registered, you will receive the event access link in your confirmation email. You can register here.
WHAT MAKES A PLAY ABOUT SCIENCE GREAT?
“To stimulate artists to create credible and compelling work exploring the worlds of science and technology and to challenge the existing stereotypes of scientists and engineers in the popular imagination.”—this has been the mission of The Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project (EST/Sloan Project, for short) for the past 26 years. Over that time the EST/Sloan Project has awarded more than $3 million in grants to some 300 playwrights and theater companies. More than 150 productions of EST/Sloan-developed plays have been mounted nationwide. Commissions range from $5,000 to $10,000.
Applications for this year’s EST/Sloan commissions are currently open and will be accepted through November 5, 2025. You can view previous commission recipients on the EST/Sloan webpage.
Two related events culminate each EST/Sloan season:
1) The First Light Festival is a series of readings and workshops that showcase plays in development and will begin again in December 2025.
2) A full mainstage production of at least one work every season. Recent mainstage productions have included Have You Met Jane Goodall and Her Mother? (2025) by Michael Walek about Jane Goodall’s first expedition to study chimpanzees in Tanzania, Franklinland (2024) by Lloyd Suh about William and Ben Franklin and experiments scientific and otherwise, Las Borinqueñas (2024) by Nelson Diaz-Marcano about the birth control pill trials in Puerto Rico in the 1950s, Smart (2023) by Mary Elizabeth Hamilton about AI technology and trust, what you are now (2022) by Sam Chanse about memory and trauma, Behind the Sheet (2019) by Charly Evon Simpson about how American gynecology began with experiments on slaves (a NY Times Critic’s Pick), BUMP by Chiara Atik (2018) on pregnancy and childbirth, SPILL (2017) by Leigh Fondakowski on the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Boy (2016) by Anna Ziegler on sexual identity, Please Continue (2016) by Frank Basloe on Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments, Informed Consent (2015) by Deborah Zoe Laufer on scientific research and Alzheimer’s, Fast Company (2014) by Carla Ching on game theory and confidence games, Isaac’s Eye (2013) by Lucas Hnath on scientific method and rivalry, and Headstrong (2012) by Patrick Link on sports and concussions.
This year's Artist Cultivation Event panelists include:
Dr. Heather Berlin
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in NY. She explores the neural basis of impulsive and compulsive psychiatric and neurological disorders with the goal of developing novel treatments. She is also interested in the brain basis of consciousness, dynamic unconscious processes, and creativity. Dr. Berlin is a a committee member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is a passionate science communicator. She hosts the PBS Nova series Your Brain, and the Science of Perception Box podcast (the #1 Science podcast on Apple Podcasts during its run). She’s also hosted PBS’ Science Goes to the Movies, and Discovery Channel’s Superhuman Showdown. Dr. Berlin makes regular appearances on StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, BBC, History Channel, Netflix, National Geographic, and TEDx, and was featured in the documentary Bill Nye: Science Guy. She also co-wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed off-Broadway show, Off the Top, about the neuroscience of improvisation, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival show, Impulse Control.
Jake Brasch
Jake Brasch (he/they) is a writer + performer + composer + clown and a recent graduate of The Juilliard School. Their new play, The Reservoir, will be the 2026 EST/Sloan Mainstage Production in collaboration with The Atlantic Theater and will mark their Off-Broadway debut. Jake recently received both national awards named for hero Paula Vogel – one from The Kennedy Center and the other from the Vineyard Theatre. He’s a proud alum of Youngblood at the Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Page 73 Writers Group and is currently developing work with Manhattan Theatre Club, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, South Coast Repertory Theatre, The Acting Company, The Farm Theater, and the EST/Sloan Project. With playwright Nadja Leonhard-Hooper, Jake is co-founder of American Sing-Song, a duo that writes and performs filthy epic musicals. Jake has long worked as a birthday party clown in the tri-state area. They have three brothers, 26 pairs of glasses, and live in Brooklyn with their brilliant husband, Tyler.
Carla Ching
Carla Ching is a native Angeleno who has called NYC home for 16 years. She wrote and performed with Peeling, the autobiographical AAPI Theater Company. Her plays include Rage Play (NNPN Festival of New Plays 2025), Revenge Porn or The Story of a Body (Ammunition Theater Company), Nomad Motel (NNPN Rolling World Premiere at City Theatre, Horizon Theatre and Unicorn Theatre; NY Premiere at The Atlantic), The Two Kids That Blow Shit Up (Artists at Play, Theatre Mu), Fast Company (South Coast Rep, EST) and TBA (2g). Development: Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, CTG Writers’ Workshop, The Lark, O’Neill. Former artistic director of 2g. Founding member of The Kilroys. Alum of New Dramatists. Co-recipient of the Horton Foote Playwriting Award and recipient of The LA New Play Prize. TV credits include Fear the Walking Dead, I Love Dick, The First, Preacher, Home Before Dark and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. She’s developed work for Netflix, AMC, Hulu, Amazon, FX and Onyx.
Dr. Evelynn Hammonds
Evelynn M. Hammonds is the Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science, Professor of African and African American Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the history of scientific, medical and socio-political concepts of race, gender and sexuality in the histories of medicine, science and public health in the United States; black feminist and queer theory and the history of disease and race. She is the author of Childhood's Deadly Scourge: The Campaign to Control Diphtheria in New York City, 1880-1930 (1999), and, with Rebecca Herzig, The Nature of Difference: Sciences of Race in the United States from Jefferson to Genomics (2008).
Lulu Miller
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the co-host of Radiolab (with Latif Nasser), host/creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature, and was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago. She was the co-founder (with Alix Spiegel) of NPR’s Invisibilia—a radio show about psychology, emotion, and “the unseen forces that control human behavior.” Her book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, is an international bestseller, translated into 11 languages. It was chosen as a Best Book by The Smithsonian, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, Brainpickings, The Washington Post and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Book Prize. She recently published her debut children’s book, Trucky Roads, about trucks and, you’ll never guess this… roads. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She has also won honors from The National Academy of Sciences, the Associated Press, the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Swarthmore College. She lives in the Chicago area with her wife and two sons.