This grant provides three more years of support for Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST)’s pioneering Sloan science and theater program, which develops, produces, and disseminates plays with scientific characters and themes.With this grant, EST will commission 30-40 new plays over three years, each with a $10,000 stipend. Alongside these commissions, EST will produce three Mainstage Productions, an annual festival with readings and workshops, and provide seed grants to regional theaters to produce Sloan plays.   To date, the EST/Sloan partnership has fostered close to 400 new science plays with 61 currently in development including 28 fully staged productions at EST and over a hundred more EST/Sloan productions nationwide reaching 75 different theaters.