Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center and Pitt Team Up To Create New Form of Interactive Theatre for Kids

Byron SpiceTuesday, February 2, 2010

PITTSBURGH-Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) and the University of Pittsburgh have teamed up in the Shakespeare-in-the-Schools (SITS) program to bring a new, interactive, touring theatre production titled "Darwin and the Kid" to area youth. A performance of "Darwin and the Kid" will be held at 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 10 at the Charity Randall Theatre on the Pitt campus.

Written by SITS founder and Pitt Professor Attilio Favorini, "Darwin and the Kid" is a play about evolution for middle- and high-school students that combines live theatre, video images and an interactive Web site. The production is the SITS program's second venture into science education. Coming on the heels of "Rachel Carson Saves The Day," a play about the pioneering environmentalist and the dangers of chemical pollution, "Darwin and the Kid" addresses key points of evolutionary science prescribed for grades 7-10 by the Pennsylvania Standards for Science and Technology.

After incorporating a sophisticated audiovisual package into "Rachel Carson Saves the Day," SITS members were convinced that school audiences would welcome a rich audiovisual environment to supplement the play's text. The ETC was invited to help create key audiovisual elements including video images of Darwin, audio and visual representations of the voyage of the Beagle, projected hypertext definitions of key terms and a Web site."We hope it's just the first of what could be a new genre of theatre," Favorini said. "It's a great way to enliven the study of science for our school kids."

For More Information

Byron Spice | 412-268-9068 | bspice@cs.cmu.edu