Healthcare Heroes Will Star in THE MOLD THAT CHANGED THE in Atlanta and Washington, D.C. This Fall

Fresh from a sell-out run at the biggest arts festival in the world, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Scottish theatre company Charades bring their new musical The Mold that Changed the World to the United States.

Supported by the CDC Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation, the musical will run at Atlas Performing Arts Center in Washington, DC, in October 18-23 and Pullman Yards in Atlanta this November 1-6.

The musical chronicles Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming's famous discovery of penicillin. As a shy Scot with no real draw to the public eye, Fleming had his fame thrust upon him soon after the First World War when he accidentally discovered the first antibiotic - the greatest leap in modern medicine of all time. He received a Nobel Prize and traveled the globe, striving to warn the public of the danger of overusing antibiotics until they are no longer able to treat infection.

However, that very problem - antimicrobial resistance (AMR) - is rapidly becoming a global threat, rated by the World Health Organization as one of the top 10 global public health threats and now causing more deaths worldwide than HIV/AIDS and malaria. Here, science has turned to the arts to communicate through empathy and storytelling to warn the general public of the urgent need for action on an individual and policy level.

The musical recruits a local chorus of scientists and healthcare professionals who perform alongside a professional cast of West End actors and live 5-piece band. This unique set-up allows the audience to hear about AMR from the mouths of those who deal directly with the pressures it causes in their everyday work and warns of the potentially dystopian future that awaits if no action is taken.

Composer Robin Hiley says, "We have learnt especially over the last 2 years that scare tactics and statistics aren't effective methods to communicate science and health related issues. The arts have been used for millennia to tell stories and rally people together, speaking to hearts over minds, and it is this we hope to do with the Mold."

Music, drama, dance and cyr wheel acrobatics frame Robin Hiley's Scottish folk-influenced score and Thomas Henderson's thought-provoking and mystical book in an evening of true entertainment.

To Purchase tickets, please visit: www.moldthatchangedtheworld.com

Charades Theatre Company - Founded in 2010, Charades Theatre Company is a Scottish charity which uses the power of theatre to inform and empower communities to acknowledge and take action on important social issues. It is currently touring its sell-out show The Mold that Changed the World across Scotland and the US, engaging audiences in the urgent global issue of AMR with support from the UK Government, CDC Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation. Charades also writes and produces musicals for schools, creating online resources to enable schools with more limited access to music teaching and resources to put on their own shows. www.charadestheatre.co.uk

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