The Salina Journal from Salina, Kansas • Page 33

THE SALINA JOURNAL APPLAUSE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2. 2003 Sloan helps factor the scientific equation into the arts By CATHERINE FOSTER Tho Boston Globe Filnunaker Jessica Sharzer got a in high school physics. Still, as a grad student at New York University's film school, she leapt at the chance to get a hefty screenwriting grant even though the film had to have a science or technology theme. "I was researching dark matter in physics and came across the term she says firom her new home in Los Angeles. "A wormhole is like a black hole, except that it's open at the other side, so theoretically you could time-travel through it.

It painted a visual pictiure for me." In "Wormhole," the 19-minute film she made from her script, a little boy, whose family has been shattered by the kidnapping of his brother, hears about the concept. He looks for one in hopes of going back in time and stopping the crime. "I Uked the idea of taking something in physics and exploring it metaphorically," says Sharzer. Her film was made because of $20,000 in grants firom the Alfi-ed P. Sloan Foundation.

Sharzer is one of a growing number of young filmmakers and playwrights who are discovering a mother lode of opportunity in dreaming up works that have to do with science or technology. Sloan's Public Understanding of Science and Technology program spends $8 million to $10 million a year funding a slew of projects in film, theater, public television, books, radio, and new media. Last year it provided support for "Inventing America: A History of the United States," a history textbook that includes science and technology. Another book, "Galileo's Daughter," became a bestseller and the basis of the NOVA special, "Galileo's Battle for the Heavens," which aired on WGBH in October. But recognizing that movies and plays shape public perception, too, the Sloan Foundation has been planting seeds with creative artists, hoping to change the way Americans think about science.

Compelling stories Alfired P. Sloan was an elusive General Motors CEO who ran the company between the 1920s and '40s and developed a hard-bitten business model (remember "planned still followed. The foundation that bears his name, though, seeks to the public a better understanding of science and technology. Sloan has been funding science- related media programs for years. But when Doron Weber came on board in 1995 as director of the foundation's public understanding program, he wanted to kick things up a notch.

"We live in a technological society, so we need to imderstand what's going on aroimd us now," he said on a snowy Monday in the foundation's New York City offices high up in Rockefeller Center. "DNA came up in the OJ trial. Now people are worrying about biological weapons." Even more important, he says, there were great stories out there that were being missed by the media. There were plenty of cops and lawyers on TV, but where were the scientists and engineers? What he wanted to see were realistic and compelling stories that challenged stereotypes about scientists. "We need people going back and forth between the (science and lay worlds)," says Weber.

"And I thought the best way is through media such as film, TV, and theater. It's very powerful." Among other things, he decided to start working with young filmmakers at the beginning of their careers. In his first year at the foundar tion, Weber chose six top film schools and pitched the idea of providing grants to help create films. Initially he met resistance. "They said, 'You can't tell creative people what to write about'" But grants are hard to come by, and his are generous: $5,000 to $20,000 for a screenplay and $15,000 to $25,000 for production grants.

Before agreeing to participate. New York University's Tisch School of the Arts scrutinized his approach. Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell says the alliance was a sea change for the school. "When we accepted Slojin, we were accepting the obligation not ordy to look at the world outside, but also the obligation to establish a methodology groimded in science. Students had to do research.

AU of this is important to them as professional screenwriters; they're not ways going to be writing about themselves." Weber, who studied film at the Sorbonne, has high standards for the projects he looks over. Does the movie work as a story? Are the characters believable? "As long as it's entertaining, they'll it," he says." 'Memento' (the 2001 fihn) is a thriller, but along the way you get an intelligent deconstruction of how short-term memory works." Students at the six film schools have produced several dozen screenplays and treatments. Among them: two projects about Ignaz Semmel- weis, a doctor who showed that hand-waslung could help stop the spread of disease "Gray Matter," about a Los Angeles coroner investigator; and "Electrical Currency," about the inventor Nikola Tesla. Then there's Sharzer's film, "Wormhole." The $30,000 fihn won a slew of awards, including the Student Academy Award Gold Medal. Weber also wanted to provide support for fihnmakers throughout their careers, and he established fellowships at the Hamptons International Film Festival, Sundance, and Tribeca.

Sloan also offers prizes for featiure films at festivals. Simdance annoimced Friday the winner of its first Sloan prize: "Dopamine," by Mark Decena and Timothy Breitbach, a film that asks if the nature of lovs strictly chemical or something more transcendent. Weber says that while the real success won't be seen for some time, the public's interest in science is gathering momentum. When he started, "A Beautiful Mind," "Copenhagen," and "Proor (none of which are Sloan projects) hadn't come out. Since then they've won numerous awards and paved the way for greater public interest in science.

And now, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," whose technicians find murder clues in bodily fluids and gun- blast residue, is the number one TV show. Weber isn't the first to try to get HoUjwood more interested in scientific topics. Leon Lederman, the Nobel Prize winner in physics in 1988, said a group of scientists tried to do the same thing in the late 1970s. "Tliey spent several long ends with TV gatekeepers," he says from Aurora, 111. "My impression was it was friendly, but they thought it was sort of funny that someone would try to talk about scientists as if they were real people, like lawyers." Making waves In the theater world, the 1998 play "Copenhagen" demonstrated that audiences could be interested in a drama that relied on complicated scientific themes.

British playwright Michael Frayn's play is about the 1941 meeting between German physicist Werner Heisenberg and Danish physicist Niels Bohr. The story is as much about human relationships and the mysteries of memory and motivation as it is about quantum mechamcs and the uncertainty principle.The New York production won a Tony for best play in 2000 and was made into a public television film. 'Copenhagen' started a whole wave of plays that related to science," says Curt Dempster, foimder and artistic director of the Ensemble Studio Theatre. The theater hosted a pre-opening symposium of scientists mentioned in "Copenhagen" as part of tlie Science and Teclmology Project. Over the last five years, the project has awarded 90 artists, composers, choreographers, and theater companies more than $150,000 to develop new works.

"Proor also helped change the social cachet of artistic projects about mathematics. The play, about mathematical genius and heredity, was first presented by the Manhattan Theatre Club off-Broadway before it moved to Broadway and won a 2001 Tony. Now it's going to be a film with Gwyneth Paltrow. Sloan and the Manhattan Theatre Club set up a partnership similar to tlie Ensemble's. Andy Hamingson, director of development for the company, says: "(Weber's) passion has ignited a lot with us here.

We specifically wouldn't have been looking for something about science, but this has caused our Uterary depzirtment to go in search of plays." In some cases the grants bring forward people who've long had an idea for a Science-related play but felt no one was interested. In others, playwrights and screenwriters with no apparent prior interest delve into these subjects for the first time. Jacquelyn Reingold, a New York- based playwright and member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, heard the company was seeking science-related plays, so she developed a comedy around ihe idea of string theory a theory of elementaiy particles based on the idea that fimdamental entities ai-e not pohitlike particles but closed loops formed by strings. In her "String Fever," a woman grappleS with love, loss, donor insemination," and turning 40 as she applies string theory to her life. "I didn't even know what string theory was when I started," Reingold says.

"I was delighted to have the op- pprtimity to write a play that I would never have written before. It was difficult, though." "String Fever" was the main- stage production of the Science and Technology Project's Furst Light Festival; when it began Feb. 26. Looking ahead, the theater has commissioned Israel Horovitz's play "promises.com." hi the 2000-2001 season, Richard Colton received a commission to adapt MIT professor Alan Lightman's novel "Einstem's Dreams." Lightman, who was also one of the judges for the Sloan prize at Sundance, says top-down funding Sloan's can produce good art if it's done right. "There are lot of people both on the stage and film who have the talent and not the money," he says.

"If the money can be made available without restrictioiw, I think it's a wonderful thing. But it's important for the artists to be independent." For Jessica Sharzer, maintaining her independence is now a matter of negotiatmg her way through the film bushiess. Her next film, "First Love," is an independent feature about a old myrmecologist. "It's a age story about a guy obsessed with ants and ant behavior," she "But he gets off ants as soon as hg sees the girl. My movie will have the only love scene including a dead beetie." Perhaps, in some small way, the Sloan Foundation can take credit for that.

Hallowell writes an interesting guide to help raise happy children By BELLA ENGLISH TliB Boslon Globe The Childhood Roots of A(lu(t Happiness: Five Steps to Help Kids Create and Sus- Lifelong Joy By Edward M. Hallowell Ballantme, 238 $22.95 The old lament has truth: Children don't come with an owner's manual. But you can buy a good one at the bookstore. My baby guru was the late, great Dr. Spock, with his advice on everything from asthma to zits.

For the emotional part of my children's Uves, I often rely on the advice of Dr. Edward M. Hallowell. He's a child psychiatrist frojh Arlington, perhaps best known for his books on attention deficit disorder, "Driven to Distraction" and "Answers to Distraction." But his more recent books are the ones that speak to me: on toxic worry and how to cope with it, and on human connections that add meaning to our lives. His most recent book, "The Childhood Roots of Adult reflects Hallowell's brain and heart, his two favorite subjects.

If you're one of those who believes in the slogan of that silly bumjper sticker "It's never too late to have a happy childhood," then this may not be the book for you. Hallowell; who says he grew in a dysfunctional family, al-i' so thinks that sentiment is sophistry. "Happiness is best not left to chance," he writes. And thoujgh he avers that, "genes matter," there's more to the story than nature. He's an optimist at heart, and he also knows that most regardless of their own upbringing desperately want, to provide their children with a happy childhood, which Hallowell says is probably the best predictor of a fulfilling adulthood.

(Likewise, feeling unloved is one of the most damaging experiences for children, he says.) Hallowell does offer a Millibns of imhappy adults had pleasant childhoods, and plenty of happy adults had awful childhoods. Those who prevail, he says, had an early relationship with a surrogate a teacher, a neighbor, a fiiiend's parent. The kids set goals and maintained hope. Or, as he puts it, they are "the ones who can fail or suffer losses or defeat but never lose heart." (Here, he cites his childhood: His father had bipolar disease, his mother was an alcoholic, his stepfather was an abusive alcoholic, and he was sent to boardmg school at age 10. Today, Hallowell is a doctor, happily married, and the "supremely proud father" of "What saved me is what saves most people who.

beat the odds: I foimd positive connections to people outside of my family," he says. Hallowell, a Harvard child psychiatrist, does not simply cite research in his book, although there is plenty of that. He refers to a study of 90,000 American youth headed up by the University of North CaroUna. Its conclusion was that two factors niost nurtxure children: feelings of connectedness at home and at school. Close behind were others: a par- erit's presence at key times in the day, parental expectations for school perfor- miance, regular parental involvement with a child's activities, parental disapproval of a child's engaging sex, an absence of guns, and no easy access to cigarettes, alcohol, or marijuana.

This book reads as a primer, full of advice and anecdotes. Hiallowell presents a five-step plan for parents, teachers, and others who deal with children: connection; play, practice, mastery, and recognition, The first two are obvious. Practice, which is really discipline you. want to do some- thing, you can do leads to mastery of something your child enjoys, which leads to recognition, or the feeling of being valued by others, Hallowell says that the most common parenting mistake today is doing too much for children, while not allowing them enough time for themselves. Another is putting too much emphasis on achievement and not enough on play.

Hallowell cautions against a "riptide" of competition: "Trust in the power of childhood rather than the power of the resume." Parental expectations should HOME MEDICAL "QUALITY PRODUCTS- PERSQI Home Oxygen-CPAPs NeMizers Respiracoiy Medicatiqt; be in Une with a child's abilities and interests, not the parents'. But he also says that the opposite attitude low expectations or indifference is hurtful. Some of Hallowell's advice is simple and obvious, but a reminder helps; these are things we sometimes forget in the helter-skelter of life. Have fUn with your kids. Let them follow theh: own I dreams, not yours.

Encourage them to play sports, but beware of obnoxious coaches and competition. Read aloud to them for qs long as they will let you. Make family dinners part of your routine. Credte family traditions. The list goes on, throughout, Hallowell's sage is clear: No matter hoAv, much parents love their chilv dren, no matter how good their intentions are, everyone: could use a road map on thisri most hnportant journey ever take in life.

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