Summer, 2026

This is a new project for me, first writing a play and now trying to get it produced. This page will provide various descriptions for various people, towards getting it produced, ASAP!

My goal is to have as many people see the play as possible, prior to the election of 2028, and my urgency has to do with my guilt: I had a similar goal that slipped regarding the upcoming November, 2026 election.

Abstract

The play is based on the true story of the heroic Russian geneticist Nicolai Vavilov and his patriotic attempts to feed his country in the years before World War II. Vavilov had brilliant ideas about how plant seeds and their genetic diversity were distributed around the world and how important genetic diversity is, before we even knew what genes were.

But Vavilov’s science came up against the ignorance of Stalin’s reign during World War II, in the form of a pseudo-scientist Trofin Lysenko. Lysenko sold better stories to a demagogue, starved Vavilov to death, and compromised all of Soviet biological science for 30 years as a result.

The story is important to tell now: Ignorance about the potential of Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics that misled Lysenko (and Vavilov!) remains unclear to many today, clouding the public’s understanding of modern genetic promise and perils. But it is the parallels with modern sycophant pseudo-scientists fueling the current demagogue’s reign in this country that could not be more clear. If we do not learn from this lesson of Soviet history, American science will be similarly devastated.

So it’s a hero’s story: An idealistic scientist tries to make the world better, only to be tortured and killed by cruel fates of history. But while fake science might appear to have vanquished Vavilov, the seeds of his redemption had already been distributed, literally and through his scientific inheritance. (Sort of like The Odyssey, if you’ve seen that :)