Current work
Last spring (2022) I debuted a program at NY Tech for undergraduates to develop science-themed stand-up comedy routines. They performed at the annual Symposium of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE); here’s a review. Last summer, I brought the project to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) summer physical sciences REU program; here’s a tweet of the performance. Since then I’ve been running it regularly at both AMNH and NY Tech, bringing in professional comedians/storytellers as guest coaches. The project is funded by National Science Foundation grant 2139004. Long term, I’d like to broaden this work for the general public.
Science comedy performance at AMNH, 2022 August 3.
Previous work: Reality Aside Theatre
I co-founded Reality Aside Theatre, a 501(c)3 non-profit, with my husband Wayne Yeager. From 2007 to 2010 we produced comedic plays in Manhattan for general audiences, and a touring educational science-themed sketch comedy show Spin One-half. We went on hiatus so that I could finish my PhD, and now we look forward to bringing it back, via the comedy project with students.
Here’s one clip of Spin One-Half from the “Rocky Relations” sketch. Here, a young man’s marriage proposal – which involves a hunk of graphite rather than a diamond – teaches us some basic chemistry: