Central Conversations for Frankenstein
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Post show conversation with Director David R. Gammons
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Central Square Theater Book Club discusses Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Join in a conversation about Mary Shelley’s masterpiece at Central Square Theater! Included will be a sneak peek into a rehearsal for Central Square Theater’s upcoming production of Frankenstein. -
Pre-Show Saturday Symposium: Frankenbook!
Frankenbook is an on-line collective reading and collaborative annotation experience of the original 1818 text of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, created by the MIT Press to celebrate the novel’s 200th anniversary. Even two centuries later, Shelley’s modern myth continues to shape the way people imagine science, technology, and their moral consequences. Frankenbook gives readers the opportunity to trace the scientific, technological, political, and ethical dimensions of the novel, to learn more about its historical context and enduring legacy, and to add their own annotations! Participants in the creation of Frankenbook will offer a demonstration of how to use this digital edition and discuss the considerations involved in publishing this timeless novel for our times.
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Post-Show Scholar Social with Deidre Lynch
Deidre Lynch teaches 18th- and 19th-century literature, the Gothic, and women's writing at Harvard, where she is Ernest Bernbaum Professor of English Literature. Her writing about Mary Shelley has appeared in The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley , The Cambridge Companion to Fiction in the Romantic Period , and other venues.
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Post-Show Conversation with Natalie Kuldell
Bioengineering and Biohacking: What questions does Frankenstein raise about today?
Dr. Natalie Kuldell leads BioBuilder, a nonprofit organization that takes cutting-edge research projects in synthetic biology and transforms them into teachable modules that students and teachers can investigate together. The BioBuilder curriculum is now taught in almost every US state and around the world. A BioBuilder textbook was published by O’Reilly Media. Last year, BioBuilder opened a community lab in Kendall Square’s LabCentral. Dr. Kuldell studied Chemistry as an undergraduate at Cornell, completed her doctoral and post-doctoral work at Harvard Medical School, and taught at Wellesley College before joining the faculty at MIT.
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Pre-Show Saturday Symposium: Frankenstein – The Mother of Science Fiction
In what ways was Mary Shelley prescient? How do the themes of her 1818 novel relate to science fiction in 2018? What issues are being - and should be - addressed by science fiction writers today?
Shariann Lewitt is a novelist and short-story author specializing in science fiction. She is currently a lecturer at MIT.
Vandana Singh, originally from India, is a science fiction author and Associate Professor and Chair of Physics and Earth Science at Framingham State University.
Sarah Smith has won the Agatha (for best mystery) and the Massachusetts Book Award (for best book). Her books are published in 14 languages and have become bestsellers here and abroad. They've been named New York Times Books of the Year (twice), London TimesBook of the Year, Village Voice Editor's Choice, Entertainment Weekly Editor's Choice, and lots of other cool things.
Cadwell Turnbull is a graduate from the North Carolina State University’s Creative Writing MFA in Fiction and English MA in Linguistics. Turnbull’s short stories have been published in Nightmare, Lightspeed and Asimov’s Science Fiction. His Asimov’s short story “When the Rains Come Back” made Barnes and Noble’s Sci-fi & Fantasy Short Fiction Roundup in April 2018.
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Post-Show Conversation with Sonia Hofkosh
Creating and Recreating Monsters
Sonia Hofkosh is Associate Professor in the English Department at Tufts, where she teaches courses in 18th and 19th Century British Literature, feminist theory, science fiction, and the intersection of literary and visual studies. Her publications include a study of the simultaneous commercialization and feminization of literary culture at the turn of the 19th C called Sexual Politics and the Romantic Author, among others.
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Frankenstein Monster Mash Costume Contest
Introducing the Frankenstein Monster Mash! Every Wednesday of the run of Frankenstein, Central Square Theater invites you and your friends to dress up for our weekly costume contest. Show up in your spookiest fit and receive one free item from our concessions booth—zombies, mad scientists, and all other manner of monsters welcome (or come as a character in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein)! In addition, a winner will be chosen each night to be featured on our website, AND will receive free tickets to one of our shows later in the season! A grand prize winner will be chosen at the end of the run. -
Post-Show Conversation with Seth Mnookin
Seth Mnookin is Director of the Graduate Program in Science Writing and a Professor of Comparative Media Studies/Writing at MIT. His most recent book, The Panic Virus: The True Story Behind the Vaccine-Autism Controversy, won the National Association of Science Writers “Science in Society” Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times book prize.
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Pre-Show Saturday Symposium – Unnatural Selection: Playwrights Respond to Frankenstein – Part I
The playwrights’ group Catalyze will stage readings of several ten-minute plays responding to timeless themes from Mary Shelley’s masterpiece. 200 years later, in this historical moment, Frankenstein inspires artists to explore the thin membrane between science and art, life and death, creation and hubris. (NOTE: Different plays are read on Oct. 20 and Nov. 3.)
Catalyze is a group of science, speculative, and slipstream playwrights based out of Central Square Theater. The Catalyze Playwriting Group is an offshoot of Catalyst Collaborative@MIT (CC@MIT), a collaboration between Central Square Theater and MIT. The Catalyze Playwriting Group writes, workshops, and performs new works of science theatre.
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Post-Show Conversation with Eric Lander
Eric Lander is president and founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. A geneticist, molecular biologist, and mathematician, he has played a pioneering role in the reading, understanding, and biomedical application of the human genome. He was a principal leader of the Human Genome Project. Lander is professor of biology at MIT and professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School.
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Post-Show Conversation with Deborah Blum – Who is the Monster?
Who is the monster? Does science undermine our moral code? A conversation about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a forerunner to questions still being posed today, 200 years after its publication.
Deborah Blum is a Pulitzer-prizewinning American science journalist, columnist, and author of five books, including The Poisoner’s Handbook (2010), and Love at Goon Park (2002). She is a former president of the National Association of Science Writers, was a member of the governing board of the World Federation of Science Writers, and currently serves as vice president of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.
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Pre-Show Saturday Symposium: Responsibility vs. Scientific Discovery and Innovation
Dr. Frankenstein’s inability to take responsibility for his Creature causes chaos in Mary Shelley’s novel. Can we direct future ramifications of recent groundbreaking scientific discoveries related to biological engineering, artificial intelligence, and the extension of human life?
Thomas Cooper, Professor of Media Studies at Emerson College, was recently a guest scholar at Stanford, Berkeley, the East-West Center and the University of Hawaii. The Association for Responsible Communication which he founded was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Cooper taught at Harvard, where he graduated magna cum laude.
Brandon Ogbunu is an Assistant Professor at Brown University, in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Prior to that, he held positions in the Department of Biology at University of Vermont, the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. His research takes place at the crossroads between computational biology, evolutionary genetics, and epidemiology.
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Pre-Show Saturday Symposium -Unnatural Selection: Playwrights Respond to Frankenstein – Part II
The playwrights’ group Catalyze will stage readings of several ten-minute plays responding to timeless themes from Mary Shelley’s masterpiece. 200 years later, in this historical moment, Frankenstein inspires artists to explore the thin membrane between science and art, life and death, creation and hubris. (NOTE: Different plays are read on Oct. 20 and Nov. 3.)
Catalyze is a group of science, speculative, and slipstream playwrights based out of Central Square Theater. The Catalyze Playwriting Group is an offshoot of Catalyst Collaborative@MIT (CC@MIT), a collaboration between Central Square Theater and MIT. The Catalyze Playwriting Group writes, workshops, and performs new works of science theatre.
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Artists & Audiences: Frankenstein
After the performance join us for a lively discussion with the cast and crew of Constellations.