You know how it’s hard to be an actor – because you’ve got all these skills and no one’s hiring?
Well, it’s hard to be a scientist too – because they’ve got all these skills and no one’s able to understand what the heck is coming out of their mouths.
Sure sure, there’s Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye the Science Guy and how many public science communicators do we really need, you might ask – to say nothing of, um, what does this have to do with being an actor?? The thing is, the disconnect between science and the story of the science can have some pretty far-reaching consequences for all of us: on the receiving end of scientists’ lectures are students who could become future science rockstars themselves if inspired at an impressionable age, and funding sources that could bankroll a breakthrough in the field, and even the U.S. Congress tasked with determining which policies should rule. If those lectures come out as boring, incomprehensible gobbledygook then it’s quite possible those students won’t enter STEM fields, those worthy projects won’t get funded, and those policies won’t end up protecting the well-being of the public or the future of science research.
Listen, scientists are brilliant – I grew up with an astrophysicist dad and I’ve been blown away my whole life not just by his commitment to discovering the unknown but by his profound commitment to integrity in the process of discovery, the scientific method. But brilliant though they may be, most scientists aren’t exactly known for their communication skills.
In other words: they lack exactly what actors have.
I’m talking voice and movement training, sure, but also our way of listening. With our whole bodies. Of picking up cues from our audience. Of making it personal yet universal. Of following our impulses and breathing into the experience and telling the story so it lands.
Fortunately, there’s a little hotspot outside of New York City that’s doing something about this disconnect. And I got invited to check it out.
If you missed the awesome spread in the New York Times earlier this year, you might not realize that Alan Alda has been moonlighting as a science spokesman for the better part of his post-M*A*S*H* days, including a twelve-year gig hosting PBS’s Scientific American Frontiers. And now he’s set up shop at Stony Brook University on Long Island to change the way scientists communicate.
Which is also a chance to change the way theater people see the value of their craft outside the audition waiting room.
Because what Mr. Alda has hypothesized is that teaching scientists improvisation will change their lives. Not improv comedy – this isn’t about making stuff up or getting audiences to laugh – but rather the fine art of thinking on your feet. Of listening on all cylinders. Of trusting that you know your material but you don’t necessarily know how your audience is going to take it, and that you can pivot based on how it seems they do. As Mr. Alda says of his own experience learning improv in his younger years, “it made me more open and available. It allowed something in me that was authentically me to come out.”
Could scientists achieve the same outcome?
In a bland, air-conditioned classroom in the center of Stony Brook’s campus the experiment unfolded. Twenty or so scientists were engaging in their first ever improv workshop – I’m talking deans of their universities and leading members of their field, electrical and chemical engineers, microbiologists, geneticists, and climate change researchers. And here they were, participating in the classic mirror exercise – performing basic leader/follower movements while facing each other, meant to approximate a reflection. At first I watched as a roomful of very smart people tried to mess each other up: jerky, unexpected movements, partner A and partner B in turn attempting to catch the other doing it wrong, giggles that suggested a certain nervous social awkwardness.
But then the instructor, a wise woman with the soul of an artist, stopped the exercise with a knowing wink and said “what if that person opposite you were your responsibility?”
Everything changed. Suddenly each partner wasn’t thinking of themselves but of the other. Each movement was now an almost sacred opportunity to take care of that person. Partnerships sprung up, fully formed. And a vulnerability in truly trying to connect. The room was silent, vibrating. And by the end, the scientists didn’t need much prodding to see how this was applicable in their real lives – as leaders, as teachers, as humans.
Nor, really, to see how valuable us artsy types can be.
The whole Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science experience was like this. Sixty or so scientists spent three solid days braving on-camera media training and intensives on how to distill their message and convey their research like a story (taught by veteran producers of 60 Minutes and journalists from Newsday). They practiced exercises on how to convey a complex subject to a lay audience without dumbing it down, and yes, dove into more improv designed to draw them out. The spirit of the gathering was honest, fun, inclusive, but unpredictable and quite deep – and I felt like I was witnessing the arts and sciences crash up against each other over and over to mutual benefit, in fresh bursts of awesome.
It turns out there are some stereotypes on both sides that need a little jostling. Theater people in attendance cried over how meaningful it felt to get treated like artists matter for once. And the scientists teared up too, over how surprising it felt to really get through to people. To abandon the crutch of jargon and rely instead on the why. To share their obscure, life’s-work passion in a manner that made the passion contagious. As Mr. Alda has said, “every scientist’s life is a heroic story. There’s an attempt to achieve something of value, there’s the thrill of knowing the unknown against obstacles, and the ultimate outcome is a great payoff — if it can be achieved. Now, this is drama!”
Scientists just need drama people to help them tell it.