The November 5th Preview is a UAlbany Go2!Event

The Technology Plays -
an experiment between man and machine

	Technology Plays Project Playwrights, from left to right: Daniel Ho, Stacy Orsini, William Kennedy, Malcolm Messersmith and Daniel J. Whalen

Pulitzer-prize winning author and UAlbany professor, William Kennedy, and international playwright and screenwriter Richard Dresser ("The Education of Max Bickford") are two of six playwrights whose technology plays will debut at the University at Albany this month. The Technology Plays are a series of six 5-7 minute mini-productions that illuminate the relationship between man and technology. This experimental form of theatre beckons the audience to interact with various forms of technology including computers, cell phones and ATMs.

The Technology Play Project, which evolved from UAlbany�s HumaniTech* Semester, brought together the University at Albany and one of the region�s preeminent theater companies, Capital Repertory Theater, to explore the impact of technology on humans and modern living.

Four other plays selected through a competition of Capital Region writers, include recent UAlbany graduate, Daniel J. Whalen �02, whose play, Beyond the Firewall, is his first professionally produced play. At UAlbany Dan majored in history and minored in English. Other winners were Daniel Ho, who received his Masters in Theater from the University at Albany, Stacy (Anastasia) Orsini and Malcolm Messersmith.

The Technology Play Project was funded in part by a grant from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation�s �Imagining America� Public Scholarship Grants Program, The Beatrice and Robert Herman Foundation, and the Office of the Provost at the University at Albany.

UAlbany students will have the first chance to preview and �experience� five of these new Technology Plays on Wednesday, November 5^th from 5-7 p.m. in the New Library Atrium. The formal debut of all six of the Technology Plays will take place at a gala premier on November 10^th in the New Library Atrium from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Staged as �viewing boxes,� each installation will feature a different form of communication, including email, cell phone, call waiting, instant messaging, Power Point presentations and pagers.

At the November 5^th preview event students will also be able to try out the latest technology from Apple Computers, including a chance to win a new Apple iPod.

*The name Humanitech is used with permission of Barbara L. Cohen and the Regents of the University of California.

Students: The November 5^th event is a UAlbany Go2!Event. Students who have registered should be sure to place a Go2!Events ID card in the special Go2! Events box located in the New Library Atrium. For information on how to register visit, UAlbany Go2!Events.

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