Alexis Roblan is one of the playwrights to feature in the inaugural Science in Theatre Festival runs from the 12th - 14th of November at Nancy Manocherian's The Cell Theatre in New York. She is an American playwright and WGA Award-nominated screenwriter.

For the festival, which pairs artists and playwrights with scientists, combining theatre with new technologies, Alexis teamed up with Dr. Heidi Boisvert to write Affinity.

Set in the not-too-distant future, where technology has made it possible to share your stories clearly in someone else’s emotional language, Affinity tells the story of a young woman named Netta, who is beginning to question whether translating experiences can genuinely create understanding. Especially if none of the details of the experience remain intact. Though it is set in the future it deals with some very real topics that are relevant today. Especially considering all the tech and media influences we experience daily. It is also a technology that Dr. Heidi Boisvert is working on and believe will be part of our lives very soon.

Alexis tells us that Heidi and she had a great connection. When they met to discuss her research they very quickly fell into philosophical discussions about what the impact of this tech could be. Alexis said, “You immediately start to think about terrifying manipulation when you think about people being able to craft narrative individually to elicit physiological responses in people. Heidi believes that this is where we are heading anyway and so she wants to further the research and do it out in the open so that people understand the tech”. Heidi focusses on the social justice aspects of what the technology can do, but Alexis was drawn to the capacity for connection and alienation that exists. The idea in the production is that we all have individual experiences that are supposed to give us the same emotional and physiological response, but each individual has different triggers for this.

When asked about writing on scientific principles Alexis revealed that she had written on real scientific principles before. When discussing the principles and ideas with scientists who can put them into layman’s terms, she has said that she immediately goes to the philosophical impacts of those ideas”. But although she doesn’t have scientific training, she is able to

translate these big, heady, philosophical idea’s into the personal, physical, and relational – which is the thesis of my work

She goes on to say that she is a person with a lot of

existential anxiety, and it’s hard not think we are heading towards extinction

But she combats this by reminding herself that the world is constantly changing and that it looks very different again in another 10 years.

We have to work towards those things but keeping abreast of that continuous possibility is what provides hope

She explains that the future could be better, or it could be worse, but she wants to participate in the better.

Alexis was asked about what she hopes her work will give to her audience. She told us that when she was younger, she believed, deeply, in a political theatre that was specifically and purposefully trying to create action. Over the years though, she has come to realize that changing perceptions is very difficult to achieve in theatre. Instead, these days, she has come to a different understanding of what we can do with the creation of art.

The best we can do is cause self-reflection, and the more we do that the better chance we have towards every goal

‍