Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Gail Carlson holds a PhD in biochemistry and teaches classes on pollution and public health. As an expert on toxic chemicals, especially PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are highly toxic), she routinely works on advocacy campaigns. As such, Carlson may not be the first person you would expect to become a playwright.
But that’s just what happened.
“I don’t write poetry,” Carlson said. “I’ve never taken a creative writing class. I’ve never thought of myself as a creative writer. But now I am one, because they say if you write a play, you’re a playwright.”
The play that earned Carlson that designation, Persistence, will open on Nov. 13 at the Gordon Center for the Creative and Performing Arts.
Persistence grew partly out of Carlson’s frustration with the incremental slowness of public measures to address toxic chemicals, specifically PFAS. Much of her academic work revolves around PFAS and advocacy, so she’s well acquainted with the landscape — as she says, “I was talking about PFAS in 2006, when we were still calling them PFCs.”
Persistence is also partly inspired by the story of one of Carlson’s former colleagues, Tim Christensen, who was a member of the College’s Biology Department.
“I taught with him for many years in what’s called the Green Cluster,” Carlson said. “Amazing, amazing person. All of his students loved him. And all of a sudden he just disappeared. It turned out he got terminal cancer and sold his farm in Unity and moved to his son’s place in Idaho and died.”
Carlson described the experience as a “profound loss,” which was surrounded by a kind of mystery. “There were all these questions. It went so fast, and you wondered, like, why did he get this?”
Before leaving Maine for Idaho, Christensen had sold his farm in Unity, Maine, to a young family. “And they were one of the families at the forefront when the PFAS story broke in Maine,” Carlson said. Christensen’s former farm was one of many directly impacted by PFAS, and its new owners were willing to speak publicly about their experiences and become, in Carlson’s words, “the face of this crisis, at least for a time.”
But Carlson felt the story, which was so important to tell during a time of environmental crisis, was being reported as just facts and figures, without a human aspect. The public was glossing over it. And it wasn’t an isolated story, either: there were other names, other faces behind it, which weren’t being acknowledged.
“So I thought, I really want to figure out how to tell the human story,” Carlson said.
To do so, Carlson hired Charlotte Torrey `26 to interview Maine farmers about their experiences under the condition that what they said would be fictionalized. After conducting those interviews, Torrey wrote what Carlson called “a really rough first draft of a play.” When Torrey graduated and moved on from the work, Carlson took it on, and developed it into what it is now. She estimates she’s written about 25 drafts since then, and she’s been working with Senior Lecturer of Performance, Theater, and Dance Bess Welden over the past year and a half to make it all happen.
Welden, who serves as the director of Persistence, describes herself as a “theater-maker” who has been working in and around theater basically since childhood. She’s taught at the College since 2010, and her expertise was instrumental in the play’s development. Part of her role, of course, was guiding Carlson through the preliminary stages of playwriting.
“I joke that Gail and I just keep giving each other homework assignments,” Welden said. Welden recommended creative writing materials to Carlson, who returned the favor by giving Welden scientific journal articles and news reports on PFAS.
Welden decided to pitch Persistence to the Performance, Theater and Dance Department as a production this academic year. She said the department’s excitement to work on interdisciplinary projects was part of what made Persistence compelling, and the department agreed to produce it.
“So Gail and I really started to dig very deeply into the development of the script,” Welden said, “really starting probably in January [2026].”
Welden also applied for and was awarded a fellowship by the Center for the Arts and Humanities. It “has allowed me to continue to do sort of above-and-beyond work,” Welden said. “So I spent all of last spring prepping for this production. And then pulling together a group of professional actors, we did some development of the script over the summer.”
There have been multiple in-progress readings throughout the project, as well as countless revisions, involving lots of attention from both Welden and Carlson. Carlson also won a writer’s residency at the Waterman’s Community Center on North Haven Island over the summer of 2026.
Persistence has required more time and work than a production at the College usually would, in large part because it’s completely original, and there are still revisions taking place.
“This has really been, in some ways, one of my primary creative projects for 2026,” Welden said. “And I have put a ton of energy into it.”
Later, she continued, “In terms of my active engagement, to be able to feel like the script was in a place that was solid enough that we could have a really positive experience with students… that kind of preliminary work far exceeds what I would normally do on a production.”
Kiara Kawatsure `27, the calling stage manager, agreed. She described early November, specifically the two weeks leading up to opening night, as “crunch time.”
“Every semester that I’ve been at Colby, I’ve stage managed at least one production,” Kawatsure said. “And I think the hours for this one are the most that it’s ever been.”
Because of how involved and diverse the role of stage manager is, Kawatsure’s schedule looks uniquely hectic. Some actors can come and go from rehearsals, but she’s required to be present all the time, and there are nine hours of rehearsal a week, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights.
Kawatsure tried to tally up her commitments for Persistence. “So it’s nine hours, plus a production meeting, and then plus actually preparing and taking down and scheduling and….” She trailed off. “It’s just been a lot,” she said. But she still describes the process as “super rewarding.”
I had the opportunity to attend a run-through of the full production on Oct. 28, during one of the rehearsals, and it’s impressive to see the coordinated effort that Persistence has become. Over the course of long interviews, Carlson, Kawatsure, and Welden all described the care, detail, and attention that has gone into turning Carlson’s script into a full production, ready for a wide audience.
At the end of our interview, I asked Carlson what she wants attendees to take away from the performances — which are slated to take place on Nov. 13 and 14 — other than the kind of enjoyment that’s part of any theater production.
“I think I want people to be free and open to respond in whatever way makes sense to them,” she said. “At a minimum, I would hope that there would be some sort of an emotional connection to one or more of the characters so that [audience members] can really see and feel the human story that is the play.”
Carlson’s background in advocacy also makes its way into the play, and she hopes that will come through, too. “If people are so moved,” she said, “there are ways that we are subtly referring to forms of advocacy that [audience members] could engage with, and we will actually have a table on Saturday [Nov. 14] with information from the environmental groups in Maine that have been at the forefront of the PFAS crisis.”
Finally, Welden described how she hopes audience members will walk away with an appreciation for the amount of work that went into the production, much of it done by students at the College, like Kawatsure.
“Like, come in and just have the full experience of the show,” Welden said. “And then afterward, kind of be, like, ‘Oh, wow. That’s a big, big project.’”
~ Elias Kemp `27
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