Instructor Spotlight: Adeline Grimmett and Ryan J. Pratt

Tell us about yourself and what inspired you to teach this course

We met in 2022 when Adeline stage managed Opus 1, a production that Ryan had written and directed. We both are heavily involved in theatre and love spending time watching and discussing theatre and design. Aside from that, we both study mathematics! We wanted to teach this course to connect science to theatre and be able to take a deep dive into a subject that is less prominent on stage. We spent the summer discussing our favorite plays that incorporate STEM, the history of science plays, and how to design a course that would engage and inspire our students to study the intersection of science with the arts.

You’re planning some field trips and welcoming some guest speakers. Can you talk a little bit more about these and how they relate to your course?

Although our course centers around reading and analyzing plays, we really want our students to be able to experience theatre as it’s performed. As part of the course, we asked all of our students to attend a professional production in Boston this semester. Some choices have been Sweeney Todd at Moonbox Productions, Fat Ham at The Huntington, and The Rocky Horror Show at Central Square Theater. We want our students to see how the technical aspects of theatre are presented onstage and how the design of a production can change the understanding of the script. We’re also advocating for them to go see a show at Central Square Theater during the spring semester, either Machine Learning or Beyond Words, both of which are about science! In terms of guest speakers, we invited Mia Levenson, a former ExCollege instructor and a Tufts PhD candidate in Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, to talk with us. Mia studies the performance of science and the intersection of biomedical science with theatre, which was a perfect tie-in to our course material. Mia spoke to our class about her research, what theatrical research consists of, and presented a case study on the connection to eugenics in theatre.

Do you have a favorite depiction of science in the media?

Adeline Grimmett: My favorite depiction of science in the media is in Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. I’m not a big video game person, but this book combined technology and human experience in such a wonderful way. The use of virtual reality as a playspace was incredible. And the movie adaptation is so fun to watch! It’s a great exploration of the connection between humans and technology, and the way that VR can allow for the extraordinary, while also looking at the manipulation and addiction to technology today.

Ryan J Pratt: I really like A Number by Caryl Churchill - which we read in class! I think that while it engages in serious scientific subject matter, it keeps the focus on the human element and the fight between nature and nurture in a really compelling way. I would love to see it professionally produced someday!

What do you hope that students will take away from your course?

We want our students to walk away with an understanding of how to read plays analytically as literature, instead of only with the eye of an actor/designer/director/etc. We’re also hopeful that our students will have a greater understanding of performance and what it means for someone to perform. One of our main takeaways from the first half of the semester was that scientists are performers, and we hope that they will use this knowledge to examine the roles of people in everyday life. Of course, we also hope they will gain a better understanding of the scientific topics we have covered. Most of all, we want them to see that analyzing theatre is fun, and that there are more subjects able to be covered through performance than one would think! Theatre is intrinsically interdisciplinary, so we hope that this look into an intersection of theatre and some given topic (STEM, in our case!) has inspired them to explore the wide range of theatrical subjects and themes.

Adeline Grimmett (she/her) is a junior studying Applied Mathematics and Theatre, Dance, & Performance Studies. She’s originally from Los Angeles and spends her time stage managing, working in the math department, and participating in various theatre clubs on campus.

Ryan J. Pratt (he/him) is a last semester senior studying Math and French. Ryan is going into economic consulting when he graduates.