The DNA Trail at the Silk Road Theatre Project in Chicago through April 4, 2010

"The DNA Trail: A Genealogy of Short Plays about Ancestry, Identity, and Utter Confusion" is playing at the Silk Road Theatre Project through April 4, 2010 in downtown Chicago. I took my students from my Bioart course at Loyola University Chicago to see the plays. The students were impressed with how entertaining the plays are. The students also personally related to several of the themes in the plays such as wanting to turn genes on to make yourself taller or make other changes to appearance, and people making assumptions about your identity based on your appearance and name. There are seven short plays ranging from the very serious and dramatic to the very humorous. Each playwright took a genealogical DNA test and related the results to self, family, community, and ethnicity.

For more information and to buy tickets:

Peter N. Gray, a Chicago artist and scientist, was the scientific consultant for the playwrights.

Hunter Cole is an artist and scientist that creates living art, abstractions, digital art, and installations confronting issues related to biotechnology in our culture. She teaches biology and art at Loyola University Chicago.