Vivienne Glance – August 16 2020

National Science Week – August 15-23 2020

Vivienne is a writer and performer, working across media: poetry, performance, science, and the written and spoken word. She holds a Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Botany from Imperial College, London, a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Western Australia and is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at UWA. For the creative component of her PhD, Vivienne wrote the play Staring at the Sun, that looks at advances in medical science that could potentially lead towards immortality. Vivienne has taught playwriting at the Peter Cowan Writers Centre and for UWA’s Extension Programme. She has been writer-in-residence at The Peter Cowan Writers Centre in Joondalup, WA, The Arts Catalyst in London, UK, and the Cummins Theatre, Merredin (supported by Stages WA). Vivienne also works with Sudanese writer, Afeif Ismail, co-transcreating his poems and plays into English.

The Cat in the Box
Australian Script Centre, 2012
80 minutes; 2 female, 2 male
Sparked by Erwin Schrodinger’s famous cat ‘thought’ experiment, this comedy explores the question: how do we all get on together without turning everything into a catfight? Is law and order the only solution, and how much freedom should we give up before law and order goes too far? And who can best answer this – science, art, commerce or religion? An artist, a scientist and a hippy are locked in a room with a cockroach and a pile of junk. Millionaire Reep enters the scene and the thin veneer of civil society is peeled back. Can they get out of the room? Can they work out what is real? Where’s that cat – is it alive or dead? And can anyone tell the difference?

Pillar of Water
Australian Script Centre, 2006
10 minute short play; 1 female, 1 male

A scientist gives a public lecture on climate change but she is constantly interrupted by the internal monologue of a climate change denier in the audience. A comic look at how scientists present their ideas to an easily distracted public.