“Our mission is nothing less than life itself. You will be explorers. Of course, you will face dangers along the way: an acidic environment, flowback, the cervical micromazes.  We will prepare you for as many of them as we can, but I won’t downplay the risks.  None of you will return.  Most of you will perish.  But with preparation, skill, and luck, one of you can become a new life.

But this is not just about you.  It’s about all of us. You can’t do this alone. Only one of you can fertilize the Egg, but the obstacles ahead are more than any single sperm could endure.  It will take all of you, working together, to put one in position to achieve our goal.    

This is a daunting mission, but we know it can be done.  Every single one of our body’s ancestors back to the beginning of life itself successfully reproduced. We will not be the first generation to fail.”

Ovonauts is a 20-minute immersive theater show where groups of 10-15 applicants don their sperm caps, frilly collars, and tails for their training and evaluation for their critical mission to ensure our species’ survival, only to end up in a sock. It is simultaneously silly, energetic, and sincere as we dedicate our full effort to play a small part in an inconceivably complex system with overwhelming odds.

It explores the challenges of collective action, where we our individual actions are unlikely to make any difference, but are critical because there’s always a chance they could make the difference.   

Reproduction--is an act of genetic desperation. There is a dark side to knowing that almost all of us will certainly fail. But we must work extraordinarily hard because we will need those efforts when the right opportunity arises.

Michael was a co-lead and producer of Ovonauts.