About Catalyst Collaborative@MIT

The Catalyst Collaborative@MIT (CC@MIT) is a unique collaboration between MIT and Underground Railway Theater (URT), a professional company with 30 years experience connecting professional theater with community. CC@MIT is dedicated to creating and presenting plays that deepen public understanding about science, while simultaneously providing an artistic and emotional experience not available in other forms of dialogue about science.

Through performances and post-show conversations with scientists and artists, CC@MIT:

•  engages audiences in thinking about themes in science and technology of social and ethical concern;
•  provides insight into the culture of science and the impact of that culture on our society; and
•  examines the human condition through the lens of science and technology that intersects our lives, and the lives of the scientists whose work changes our world and their own.

Programs include:

•  An upcoming production of FROM ORCHIDS TO OCTOPI: An Evolutionary Love Story by award-winning playwright Melinda Lopez, commissioned by the National Institues for Health.
•  Annual commissions of playwrights and scientists to create new plays about science and technology
•  Premieres and classic plays about science, followed by open conversation with audiences led by scientists and theater artists
•  Staged readings of plays about science to area schools and community centers
•  The development of new curricular material for grades 5-12
•  A model for creative campuses: opportunities for MIT and other Boston-area college students for rich interdisciplinary field experience.

Recent Highlights

In 2008, CC@MIT presented a critically acclaimed and Elliot Norton Award nominated production of QED – An Evening with Richard Feynman by Peter Parnell to sold-out houses in its new home, Central Square Theater, as well as at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT as part of the Cambridge Science Festival.
The 2008-2009 season at Central Square Theater also featured Mainstage productions of Einstein's Dreams and The Life of Galileo. Both were produced by CC@MIT.
It also staged two readings of David Mamet's The Water Engine at MIT and in the community, followed by conversations about the politics of scientific progress.
By special invitation, CC@MIT's Einstein's Dreams was featured at the World Science Fair in New York City in June 2008, garnering rave reviews and packed houses.

Supporters

We would like to acknowledge and thank our generous supporters. Funders of this project presently include:
• Council for the Arts at MIT and the
   MIT Offices of the Deans of the:
         - School of Engineering
         - School of the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
         - School of Science
• Biogen Idec Foundation
• Novartis Institutes
• Vertex Pharmaceuticals
Important support also from:
• The Cambridge Science Festival
• MIT Museum
• Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard