The full programme for the Wellcome Trust International Public Engagement Workshop ‘Telling Stories’

Imagining the Future IV: Theatrescience India at the National Centre for Biological Sciences is the most recent phase of a project that began in Plymouth, UK in 2003. The first Imagining the Future brought together scientists, writers, actors and directors for a series of workshops and seminars, and resulted in four new plays based around biomedical science. This was followed by ‘Theatre of Science’, an year-long programme of work which combined science with theatre, in association with the Theatre Royal, Plymouth.

In July 2008, Imagining the Future III: Theatrescience India in London took place. This five-day event consisted of a number of workshops, performances, playreadings, and discussions which explored the political, emotional and personal implications of current developments in biomedical science.

In February 2003 the Arts Development team at TR2 in partnership with Peninsula Medical School (PMS), began Imagining the Future, a project funded by the Wellcome Trust, which aimed to bring playwrights and scientists together in a safe space, and enabled them to explore each others’ worlds, lives and work.

The Drama of Science is about raising pupils’ understanding of biomedical science issues. It involves a workshop, education pack and video describing a process of how to use drama to explore and express biomedical science issues: practical, moral and ethical. It aims to help pupils explore these issues in an exciting and stimulating way. It is (currently) mainly aimed at Key Stage 4 students.

In September 2006 Rebecca Gould, Associate Director at the Theatre Royal Plymouth, Jeff Teare, Freelance Director and ‘Theatre of Science’ Consultant and Director and Simon Turley, Playwright, visited Kolkata, Mumbai and Bangalore. They wanted to explore ways in which Theatrescience – an idea developed from the Theatre Royal Plymouth’s ‘Theatre of Science’ project and from other work developed by the team on a similar theme - could operate in India.