Scientists, Technologists and Artists Generating Exploration (STAGE) was created in 2005 to encourage collaboration between artists and scientists. Originally, it began as a partnership between the Professional Artists Lab and the California NanoSystems Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara. STAGE, which is housed at California NanoSystems Institute, hosts a biennial international script competition and a Collaboratory.^[1]

The founder and director of STAGE is Nancy Kawalek, a Studio Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.^[2]

Script Competition

The STAGE International Script Competition awards a $10,000 prize to the best new play about science and technology.^[3]

Past Judges

A panel of artists and scientists serve as jurors for each cycle of the competition.^[4] Judges have included

• Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning playwright David Auburn
• Tony-, Oliver-, and Obie Award–winning playwright John Guare
• Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire
• Nobel laureate in physics Sir Anthony Leggett, KBE
• Nobel laureate in chemistry Alan Heeger
• Nobel laureate in physics David Gross

Past winners

Playwrights who have won the competition include

• Jamie Pachino for Splitting Infinity^[5]
• Elyse Singer for Frequency Hopping^[6]
• Anna Ziegler for Photograph 51^[7]
• Craig Baxter for The Altruists^[8]

The Collaboratory

In 2009, STAGE launched The Collaboratory, an artistic laboratory for the development of theatrical works that have a multi-media component and that feature science and technology. The first play being created in The Collaboratory is The Brain Project.^[9]

The Brain Project

Participants of The Brain Project include

• Alyssa Anderson
• Dwier Brown
• Michael Gazzaniga, PhD
• Angela Goethals
• Scott Grafton, MD
• Geoffrey Grinstein, PhD
• Nancy Kawalek
• Kenneth Kosik, MD
• James Lashly
• Maurizio Seracini, PhD
• Deb Norton