Knowledge is power. And knowing how our brains work – and how they don’t – can make a powerful difference for all of us – in many ways.
Barnes-Jewish Hospital, in partnership with Nine Network of Public Media, will present “BrainWorks,” a live theatrical performance in four one-act plays July 19 to 21, at the Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts at Webster University.
Using humor and storytelling techniques that deliver critical health information and fascinating facts about the brain in a way that people can understand and discuss, “BrainWorks” reveals facts about Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, brain tumors and stroke.
The production dramatizes real-life neurological cases through the eyes of Washington University neurosurgeons, Albert H. Kim, M.D., Ph.D., and Eric C. Leuthardt, M.D., who are nationally renowned physicians, scientists and hosts of the Brain Coffee Podcast.
Using the novel approach of merging medical information and entertainment, the two will guide the audience through each scene, helping them understand the wonders of the human brain and the neuroscience of brain diseases. Kim and Leuthardt teamed up with playwrights from the New Dramatists to write each one-act play based on real-life cases overseen by the neurosurgeons.
“We have involved conversations about what’s going to happen – the course of treatment, the risks and benefits,” Kim said. “We also ensure the families become involved in those conversations. Together, the patient and family members become a part of the process that transforms and heals them. It’s this kind of conversation we want to bring to others through ‘BrainWorks.’”
Seth Gordon, associate director of The Repertory Theatre, said medicine determines if we are healthy or unhealthy, and if we live or die, and to pair those questions with an art form that deals with human empathy and human behavior is something he is proud to bring to the stage so that everybody can see it.
Summaries of the four one-act plays are as follows:
Rinse & Repeat: A retired judge prepares for the case of her life, while her granddaughter does her best to get through breakfast. Rinse. Repeat. This play highlights the challenges, the love, and even the humor, involved in having or caring for someone who has dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.
X Marks the Spot: Inspired by a number of patient stories from Barnes-Jewish Hospital, this fascinating play focuses on a mid-career professional whose personality undergoes profound changes caused by meningioma, a treatable, benign brain tumor. As the story unfolds, Dr. Kim reveals how brain tumors form and develop. He then discusses surgical advances that make removing them safer for patients today.
Brain Interrupted: This coming-of-age story examines epilepsy and its effects on the brain. Leuthardt walks audiences through the neuroscience of adolescence and epilepsy and discusses new brain-mapping technology that eases the suffering of those who live with seizures.
Double Windsor: The Double Windsor knot is elegant, dignified and difficult to tie under the best of circumstance, and seemingly impossible if you’ve suffered a stroke and lost the use of your left hand. Inspired by one of Leuthardt’s patients, this scene demonstrates how new therapies and emerging technologies, such as the brain-computer interface, are making second chances possible for people who have experienced stroke and other traumatic brain injuries.
“BrainWorks” will be recorded for broadcast in St. Louis on Nine PBS, and potentially, on public television stations across the country in 2020. The previous “BrainWorks,” a televised one-hour special, originally aired in 2015, and reached 500,000 people. It won a 2016 Regional Emmy Award.
“BrainWorks” will be presented at 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday, July 19 and 20, and at 2 p.m., Sunday, July 21 at the Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of Webster University. Tickets are $27 to $75, and can be purchased at ninenet.org/brainworks. Limited opening night-only VIP experience tickets are also available for an additional $50 per ticket, which include an exclusive VIP reception directly after the performance with Kim and Leuthardt.
