Doctors in the house

Bob Handelman

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The life of a postdoctoral fellow has its challenges, but most don’t resort to swinging chairs around on a regular basis. These three postdocs are in fact on stage for a spring production of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party in the Mary Harkness Auditorium at the School of Medicine. Susree Modepalli (left), Marinka Koenis (center), Henry Canada (right), and three others were brought together as the Postdoc Players under the direction of Diane Strauss, research director of the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance and a lover of theater. “I sent a message to the postdoctoral association saying I wanted to start an acting group. Most of the people had never performed before,” says Strauss. The Birthday Party starts as a comedy of errors, but turns sinister when unexpected guests arrive. The players were rewarded with a standing ovation. We suspect, however, that their day jobs are too good to give up.