Theatre director Katie Mitchell will collaborate with scientist Stephen Emmott on a co-production Ten Billion between the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs and the Festival d'Avignon.
Based on a prediction that the Earth will have more than ten million inhabitants by the end of the current century Emmott—who is head of computational science for Microsoft Research and Professor of Computational Science at University of Oxford—will present, "a new kind of scientific lecture, highlighting key issues being lost in translation in our discussion of the environment".
Royal Court artistic director Dominic Cooke said, "When Katie Mitchell approached me about this project, I was excited. Once I'd met Stephen I knew it was something we had to do. It isn’t a play, it may not even be described as ‘theatre’ and we have never put a scientist centre stage at the Royal Court before, but it could just be one of the most important projects I’ve ever worked on."
The production will be at the Royal Court from 12 to 18 July and 31 July to 11 August. For more information, see www.royalcourttheatre.com.