Interview: Playwright Tom Attea Talks SCIENCE at Theater for the New City

Theater For The New City, presents Science, a new play by Tom Attea and directed by Mark Marcante. BroadwayWorld sat down with the play's prolific author to chat about this exciting new work and what audiences can expect from this scientific drama!

In the new work, Dr. Alexander Morgan is a Nobel-Prize winning research chemist and professor at a medical school, who has, in his words, put himself in the service of life. It's his religion. Bret Wilmont is a brilliant medical student, who Dr. Morgan invites to be his lab assistant. Bret hesitates, because he's the son of a Fundamentalist Christian pastor, and the rumor on campus is that Dr. Morgan is an atheist. When he finds out what Dr. Morgan believes, he has a hard time finding fault with it. When Bret meets Dr. Morgan's daughter, he's attracted to her. She's also attracted to him, but her beliefs are similar to her father's. Bret's life complicates even more. One reason is that he's already engaged to his long-time girlfriend, who is a devout member of his father's church.

Tom Attea is the author of over a dozen plays and musicals produced Off-Broadway. The first show, Brief Chronicles of the Time, was a contemporary revue presented by The Actors Studio, where he was a member of The Playwrights Unit for 10 years. The rest of his shows have been presented by Theater for the New City in New York's East Village. Tom received a TNC/Jerome Foundation emerging playwright grant and is a long-time member of The Dramatists Guild. He has a broad education that encompasses science and art. The combination informs his work. He holds a bachelor's degree as well as a doctorate degree.

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Tell me more about your newest play, Science!

The central question of the piece is, "Can science and religion work together?" Now that argument has never been staged, and that is what this play does. We have a Nobel prize-winning chemist, a medical researcher in cancer, who represents one side of the story. He is devoted to his work, and has put himself, in his words, "in the service of life." He goes on to say that it's his religion. There's a real reason for that, because religion is the passionate kind of commitment that it's going to take to do this justice. A medical student comes in, and he is the son of a fundamentalist preacher who is living for end times. Nothing is going to please them more than the end of the world when they can all to heaven. To create the drama, you take science dedicated to this life and religion dedicated to end times, and you ask the question, "Can religion and science find a way to work together to solve the problem?"

What compelled you to take on such controversial subject matter?

I realized at some point that a living playwright has a unique opportunity that even Shakespeare didn't have, and that is to write about his time. And if he's serious minded about it, whether he's writing a musical, a comedy or a drama, he picks topics that have deeper meanings and subjects so that the audience can come there and share their inner thoughts about deeper things and have the sort of communion that live theater provides. They can't get it elsewhere. I'm an idealist so my hope is that I can make some small contribution to the self- realization of the human race.

With such heavy questions at the heart of the play, I'm curious about the process of bringing it to life, what sorts of conversations did the company have in order to understand the mission? Were there any spirited debates in the rehearsal room?

We have a wonderfully committed cast. They love the show and they're proud to be in it. I knew it would be a little bit of a challenge, but I knew it was going to work. One of the actors read it, and he wrote back and said, "I read the whole thing in one sitting, and it's brilliant in more ways than one." Something like that even shocks me, because when I dare to write something this different, I'm actually asking myself, "What is the world gonna think of this?" Because it's a strange duck, isn't it? It's not like the usual thing. And it is so delightful when you take that risk and you decide to try to write intelligent and not preachy stuff. There's not a word of preaching is in this thing. When you try to write a disarmingly entertaining piece about a hugely consequential subject, you don't know how people are going to behave. It's the same with the critics. Now the question I have is how many can sit patiently and listen to a bit of science, because they're literary people. So it's very risky there.

You said that the play invites the members of the audience to make up their own minds about which side of the argument they connect to, religion or science. As the playwright, which side of the equation do you feel that you land on?

I'm very similar to the professor. I put my faith in this life as the most logical way to respond to knowing I'm alive and I think dismissing it is partly based on our ancestors inability to understand that life is improvable. If you think about life evolving on planets, you know that they're all gonna begin with life being pretty rough. But over time, something has happened that I call the revelation of science, which is we have discovered that life is improvable. Once you know that life is improvable, what does that mean? It means maybe we weren't sent here to suffer. Maybe instead of original sin, we got an original blessing. The idea that life is improvable turns certain ideas of traditional religion on their heads, but nobody has written about it. It's just there in the background. So when it comes to this show, maybe people will start to think that maybe it is a denigration of this life to dismiss it and want to go on to something we think is better. Is it possible that the most form of reverence to whatever might be behind it is to take care of it?

What lessons do you hope audiences will take out of the play?

I hope that they come and realize that it's a well-intentioned effort to stage what I think is maybe the most consequential question of our time, which is can science and religion, two of the biggest forces in society, work together with passion, with religious fervor, to help save the earth and its biodiversity? Imagine if you had the millions of people who are living primarily for end times, and if you could get even a fraction of them to convert their primary faith or care to this life, what a change it would bring.

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Science will play a three-week limited engagement, April 14 through May 1, at Theater For The New City (155 1st Ave at 10th Street, NYC). Opening night is Friday, April 22 at 7PM. Performances are Thursday, Friday & Saturday at 8PM, and Sunday at 3PM. Tickets are $18, $15 for students and seniors, and are now on sale at OvationTix.com and the box office, (212) 254-1109. For more information, visit TheaterForTheNewCity.net.