Intimate Surveillance, a thriller by New Hampshire playwright Catherine Stewart that probes the repercussions of consumers granting technology companies nearly unfettered access to their private lives, has received the 2024 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Playwriting from the Neukom Institute for Computational Science at Dartmouth.
“Hardly any of us stop to think about just how much power we cede to companies when we simply click on a ‘terms of service’ agreement as we hurry to shop and read on the internet,” says Dan Rockmore, director of the Neukom Institute and a professor of math and computer science who created the award program.
“Every click and swipe we make, every virtual or even physical location that we visit, is helping many companies build and profit from accurate models of our behaviors and personalities,” Rockmore says. “Stewart has written a sharp, searing, and timely minimalist commentary on this brave new style of our digital lives.”
Established in 2018, the annual Neukom playwriting award considers plays and other full-length works for the theater that address the question of what it means to be a human in a computerized world. The award is a partnership between the Neukom Institute, the Department of Theater, and Northern Stage, the professional theater company based in White River Junction, Vt.
“I’m honored to have received the Neukom Literary Arts Award for Playwriting,” Stewart says. “It’s an incredible affirmation of my work. I’m grateful for the opportunity to explore innovative storytelling at the intersection of art and technology at Northern Stage in partnership with Dartmouth.”
Stewart’s timely and taut 90-minute drama unfolds in real time over one charged conversation. The play begins with disgraced entrepreneur Mina James sitting down with storied journalist David Mendez for a seemingly innocent interview about her latest invention.
But the encounter quickly spirals out of Mina’s control due to David’s relentless and searing questions. Mina—and the viewer—are pushed to grapple with the reality and consequences of allowing technology to surveil some of the most intimate aspects of our lives.
“While many of our recent Neukom winners have addressed imaginative situations in the near future, Stewart’s play grapples with the issues facing us today,” says Sarah Wansley, BOLD associate artistic director at Northern Stage. “Intimate Surveillance tackles the urgent theme of data privacy in a deeply personal way. A thriller with complex characters, this smart new play explores the very human consequences of our increasingly intricate relationship with apps that track personal health data.”
Stewart’s award includes a $5,000 cash prize and a weeklong workshop at Dartmouth and Northern Stage in February 2025 as part of Northern Stage’s 2024/25 New Works Now Festival. The workshop will culminate in two free public readings of the play featuring professional and student actors.
Northern Stage will host the first reading at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 14, at the Byrne Theatre in the Barrette Center for the Arts at Northern Stage in White River Junction. The second will take place on the Dartmouth campus at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 15, in Filene Auditorium located in Moore Hall.
“From the solitary work of the early stages of this play, I couldn’t be more thrilled to bring more artists into this collaborative process,” Stewart says.
The Frankenstein Project by Oregon-based playwright E. M. Lewis was selected as the finalist for 2024. Five additional plays were selected as honorable mentions: The Fabric of Things by Dan Aibel; Sync by Shanna Allman; otou-san by Sean-Joseph Choo: Cut It Out by Jonah Lipsky; and I WOULD DO ANYTHING 4 U! by Maggie Munday Odom. All the recognized plays were selected from 96 submissions.
The Neukom Institute for Computational Science is dedicated to supporting and inspiring computational work. The Literary Arts Awards is part of the Neukom Institute’s initiative to explore the ways in which computational ideas impact society.
