Queen
Madhuri Shekar
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Produced in Collaboration with EnActe
Seven billion bees over a ten-year period, just disappeared … not died, disappeared with no signs of their bodies remaining. Without honeybees, eventually 90% of the food grown in the world, gone. Why are the bees moving toward extinction at such an alarming rate? Is it a virus, radiation, a mutation?
After six years of field research and the creation of a complicated mathematical model, two researchers at UC Santa Cruz have data finally proving what so many have suspected: The neonicotinoid pesticides made by Monsanto are responsible for the so-called Colony Collapse Disorder. But wait, why does their last set of data not follow the predicted curve? It is so clear what the answer is and who the corporate culprit is. What’s wrong with these final data?
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley in collaboration with Enacte opens Madhuri Shekar’s Queen, a captivating, nail-biting dive into the scientific, mathematical workings of two brilliant, young women as they feverishly near the finish line of their multi-year, career-defining research that could literally help save the world’s agriculture industry and food supply. In just a few days, ecology scientist Ariel Spiegel and applied mathematician Sanam Srinivasan along with their supervising professor, Dr. Phillip Hayes, will announce their findings and find themselves on the cover of the nation’s most prestigious science journal, Nature. But a final data run is not showing what all the data in the past six years has shown; and the young women only have a matter of days to understand why and fix it.
For the rest of my review, please proceed to Talkin’Broadway.
Rating: 5 E
A Theatre Eddys Best Bet Production
Queen continues through March 31, 2024, in production by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley at the Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, CA. Tickets are available online at www.theatreworks.org , by phone noon – 6 p.m. Tuesday – Saturday at 877-662-8978, or by email at boxoffice@theatreworks.org.
Photo Credits: Kevin Berne
