Fly Me to the Moon ready for official takeoff / 20 July 2019

Double International Premiere for JPT's New Play

July 20th 2019 marks one of the most important anniversaries in the history of humanity: 50 years earlier two men placed their feet on the Moon, the first time our species crossed the boundaries of our atmosphere to reach another celestial object...

Today our world is very different from what it was then and going to the Moon seems like something from some other age when people with the right stuff achieved amazing feats. It was an age of contradictions but also of great ideals.

We try to capture all that and much more in our new play written by JPT's artistic director Andrea Brunello, Fly Me to the Moon, that will premiere both in Italy and in the United States on the very important anniversary July 20th.

Italian Premiere - Kilowatt Festival

America Premiere - WKU Hardin Planetarium

The Italian premiere (in Italian) will be an Arditodesìo - JPT production directed by Fabrizio Visconti. On stage Laura Anzani and Ettore Distasio. The American Premiere (in English, with a version translated by Brunello) will be a staged reading with actors from a Bowling Green theatre company.

We are very happy about this amazing event and very grateful that Hardin Planetarium offered to us this great opportunity of bringing our work out of European boundaries.

Actors Laura Anzani and Ettore Distasio - MoniQue Foto

Teatro della Meraviglia 2019 Festival is finally on its way!

The third edition of the Theatre&Science Festival in Trento (Italy)

Starting Feb. 18 through Feb. 23 the new edition of Teatro della Meraviglia (Theatre of Wonder) Festival will hit the stage at Sanbàpolis Theatre in Trento.
Performances, augmented lectures and many events will make this edition a memorable one! Once again the collaboration with Portland Theatre, the University of Trento and the Opera Universitaria has allowed us at JPT to produce a rather innovative and forward thinking festival devoted to the narration of Science through Theatre and the Arts.

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Tommaso Rosi - Hypervision - at TdM2019

Fly Me To The Moon showcases at PACTA in Milan

"Dreams, sometimes, do come true"

It happened! After long days of rehearsal the new JPT production FLY ME TO THE MOON finally started its official run. On February 8 2019 we hit the stage at PACTA . dei Teatri in Milan. What a great evening! Everything worked out nicely and the play was really well received. These performances at PACTA are the warming up the official premiere that will happen on July 20 2019 at Kilowatt Festival in Tuscany. 50 years after the first Lunar Landing our play will officially take off.
Now its time to work on the last details but the play is full and running.

Laura Anzani and Ettore Distasio on stage at PACTA

Fly Me To The Moon - New 2019 Production

2019 will mark the 50th anniversary of the first Lunar landing.

On May 21st 1961 President Kennedy gave a speech in front of the US Congress: “…I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”

On September 12 1961 he elaborated his reasons in front of a crowd at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas: “…But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? […] We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

On July 20th 1969 20:17 UTC (GMT), before the decade was out, the Lunar Module Eagle landed on the moon at Tranquillity Base.

“Houston. Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.
“Roger, Tranquillity. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot”.

Six hours later astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin stepped on the moon. “A small step for [a] man, a giant leap for mankind”. Kennedy’s wish had been fulfilled.

We at Jet Propulsion Theatre could not hold back from trying to celebrate the event, our way. So here we go... introducing the brand new 2019 production dedicated to the most amazing technological achievement of all times.

Fly Me To The Moon will have its world premiere on July 20 2019 but it will showcase much earlier than that, on February 8, 9 and 10 at PACTA . dei Teatri in Milan (Italy).

The production will be available both in English and Italian. Here is the crew involved in the project...

Text Andrea Brunello

With Laura Anzani and Ettore Distasio

Directed by Fabrizio Visconti

Light design Fabrizio Visconti

Scenes Marco Muzzolon

Costumes Mirella Salvischiani

Scientific consulting Stefano Oss

Philosophical consulting Enrico Piergiacomi

Synopsis

Adam is an Apollo Mission Astronaut. A very good one. He has a dream: to reach the Moon. He is ready to sacrifice everything, wife, children, family, health, even his own life in order to get there.

Valentina is a woman, a mother of two children and the wife of Adam. She is strong, intelligent, determined and in many ways she has an “astronaut” soul, just as much as Adam. Fly Me To The Moon is the story of their relationship told in the shadow of the mighty Saturn V missile and the Apollo Project. It’s the story of an unbalanced love between her and him and the Moon, an all absorbing dream that, for its very utopian nature, continuously risks to become the the cause of their destruction.

But Fly Me To The Moon is also about human ingenuity and the science that had to be developed in order to bring humans far away from the Earth. It’s about the Moon, our celestial companion, and its amazing characteristics. The play is a tribute to the fascination that we humans have felt for our nightly companion since the beginning of time and to our desire to learn, to be curious, to never stop exploring.

50 years since the Lunar Landing!

JPT at Falling Walls Engage - Berlin

2018 has closed with a very prestigious event for Jet propulsion Theatre. We had the opportunity to present the project in front of a very varied and engaging audience at the Falling Walls Engage event in Berlin, on November 8 2018. Following that event, we participated to the Falling Walls Conference, on November 9 and 10.
These 3 days have been fully packed with events, meetings, workshops, networking events (the famed Braindates!).
All in all a very exciting event that can only bring good things to our budding project.

JPT was at the Conference in 2018!

Bringing Research into the Classroom - SPNE14 in Athens

JPT's work aims at bringing out the Human Side of Science, and it does so through a series of actions like theatre productions, workshops, conferences, communications. We believe that it is of fundamental importance to connect people with the world of science and most importantly with scientists and researchers.

That is why we welcomed very warmly the opportunity to co-organize and co-conduct the SPNE14 to be held in Athens on September 5th 2018: "Research into the classroom". Here's a link to the event.

SPNEs are Networking Event organized by the EU Project Scientix, coordinated by the European Schoolnet.

The event will be devoted to understanding not only how to bring research and schools / students together, but also what are the stereotypes that plague the image that (young) people have of scientists and researchers? Why do they arise? How to dispel them?
We look forward to the conversations, round tables and results.

We'd like to thank the European Schoolnet and Scientix for inviting us.

The organizers of SPNE14

PERFORM Project wraps up with a Conference

Over the past 12 months we have had the pleasure to interact with PERFORM (Participatory Engagement with Scientific and Technological Research through Performance) a project financed by the EU that "...aims to investigate the effects of the use of innovative science education methods based on performing arts in fostering young peoples’ motivations and engagement with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)...". Here's a link to their web site.

Right away realized that the ideas behind PERFORM are really what we are about with Project Jet Propulsion Theatre so it became natural trying to interact with them.

It all happened on June 14 and 15 2018 when we had the pleasure to participate to the closing conference in Paris, summing up the work that had been done till then. We even had the opportunity to do a poster session where we introduced JPT to the participants.

All in all we came away from the conference with the very positive feeling that the field of Science Communication through Theatre and Performance is alive and well. Lots can still be done but it has amazing potential for growth. We are looking forward continuing collaborations with the partners of PERFORM, creating networks and pushing forward the idea that Art&Science is really the way of the future.

Brunello at the PERFORM Poster Session