Archive: Arts & Entertainment

In 1983, at age 81, Barbara McClintock won the Nobel Prize for her work on plant genetics—work that has turned out to be essential to today's genetic research. Some have made her into a feminist icon, a misunderstood woman scientist ahead of her time. Others say it was her own eccentricities that held her back. Who was she really? It's not something read in a paper or proved in a lab.

After writing a first play full of research on McClintock, "I realized that theatre is art, not a history lecture," Pratt said. The second play, Maize, is the playwright's own thoughts and images based on the life of Barbara McClintock. Pratt has been writing plays since self-producing her first one, Chimera, in 1996. Her plays have been produced in NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, and Cape Town South Africa, among others, and published by JAC Publishing and Art Age Publications.

The story begins when Barbara, despite a lifetime of honors and awards, has stopped publishing, hiding away in her remote laboratory. Her boss insists that she give up maize and focus on his research. Barbara is in love with maize—or researching maize genetics. But to do what she loves, she adapts, she mutates, and she struggles against sexism and her own difficult nature. Maize imagines this chapter of McClintock's life to explore creativity, idiosyncrasy, and the sacrifices made for the joy of research.

Pratt is self-producing the world premiere of this timely new play. At the helm is Amina Omari, a director, actor, and writer, whose directing credits include Dog Sees God, Orange Flower Water, Far Away, Spring Awakening, Much Ado About Nothing, and Ithaca Shakespeare Company's all-female production of Julius Caesar. With Ivy Stevens as stage manager, the production features Carolyn Cadigan and Kate Blackwood as Barbara McClintock, A.J. Sage as Jim Watson, David Romm as Marcus Rhodes, and Sherron Brown as Nina Federoff. The artists behind the scenes hail from across the Ithaca theatre community: set design by Norm Johnson, costume and props by Liz Kitney, lighting by Lea Davis, and sound by Thomas Bruce, with publicity photography by Brandon Douglas and production photography by Sheryl Sinkow. Dave Dietrich is the technical director, Suzanne Schwartz is the assistant technical director, Benjamin Stevens is the house manager, and Lucy Walker is the assistant director and marketing director.

Maize will be performed February 23 through 25 and March 2 through 4 in the theatre at Risley Hall at Cornell University, on Risley Drive off Thurston Avenue in Ithaca, New York. Shows begin at 7:30pm on Fridays and Saturdays and at 2:30pm on Sundays.

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