A Black History Month Celebration: Young Nerds of Color (a work in progress)

Presented by Mass General Hospital and the Front Porch Arts Collective

When and how did you fall in love with science? Who are the people who opened doors for you (or, conversely, got in your way)? What are your most personal hopes? Your wildest dreams? What challenges should science tackle now, and how? Why is diversity in professional science important?

Young Nerds of Color (YNOC) is a new play in development, written by Melinda Lopez and commissioned by Central Square Theater through their Catalyst Collaborative@MIT program, the nation’s longest-running partnership between a professional theater company and a world-class research institution. YNOC was created to respond to the growing lack of representation of people of color, young people, and women in science. Created from over 60 interviews, the inaugural production will be in Spring 2022. YNOC brings to the stage deeply-felt stories of people passionate about science for whom the journey has been complex. Dawn Simmons, Artistic Director of The Front Porch Arts Collective (The Porch) is the play’s director. The Porch is a theater-in-residence at Central Square Theater.

Learn more at CentralSquareTheater.org

All are invited to stay for a post show talk-back about the play hosted by Front Porch and MGH.

A Black History Month Celebration is presented as part of the 2020–21 MIT Performing series, a prototyping and presenting series programmed by Jay Scheib, professor for Music and Theater Arts, and presented by the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology. The series is supported in part by the Council for the Arts at MIT. MIT Performing promotes a research-based artistic practice and serves as a new platform for contemporary performance.