CHAMPAIGN — Nearly half a million dollars from the 2025-2026 iteration of the University of Illinois Chancellor’s Research Program will go towards seven different initiatives. That includes a project that aims to showcase cancer research through theater.
Voices of Cancer is receiving $75,000 to look into cancer disparities in underrepresented groups.
Azlan Guttenberg Smith, one of the community researchers on the project, said they are interviewing cancer survivors, patients, doctors and family members.
“Were their concerns taking seriously or not?” asked Smith. “Was their voice heard or not? Were they understood as an expert of their own experience, or were they not by the structure that they were interacting with?”
So far, Smith says they’ve heard most subjects say that their race, class and gender have played a role in their experiences.
The group will use these interviews to put together a script for theater. Smith said this is one of several initiatives that they’ve turned into live performances.
“We’re not in the business of saying ‘70% of people reported this, and 80% of people reported that,'” they explained. “Instead, we’re in the business of saying, ‘here’s a story that is true of one person’s lived reality.”
The project will string together various voices into an on-stage performance with actors next year.