Climate Emergency

Chantal Bilodeau kicks off our second Theatre in the Age of Climate Change series by writing about her work on the international Climate Change Theatre Action initiative.

José Torres-Tama writes about his experience in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina, ten years ago.

David Bruin on Mondo Bizarro and ArtSpot Productions’ Cry You One at the Arts & Ideas Festival in New Haven, Connecticut.

Jennifer Sokolove talks about funding work around climate change, and how organizations can reimagine granting to support work at the intersection of art activism.

Norwegian composer Marte Røyeng has created a musical exploring sustainability with children, hoping to help them think about big issues.

Elizabeth Doud addresses the emergency of climate change and the need for a poetics to shift consciousness.

Jeremy Pickard of Superhero Clubhouse searches for hope and asks impossible questions as he creates nine Planet Plays, which examine the world in the context of climate change.

Australian scenic designer Tanja Beer explores designing with the intentions of enriching audiences as well as our environment and communities.

Sarah Cameron Sunde explores the issue of water rising on our planet, explores the drastic changes through art, and implores people to consider the water.

This hour-long conversation will take place on Thursday, April 23 on hashtag #howlround at 11am PDT (Vancouver) / 1pm CDT (Austin) / 2pm EDT (Toronto) / 18:00 GMT / 7pm BST (London).

Alanna Mitchell talks about transforming her book Sea Sick: The Global Ocean in Crisis into a one-woman show, and the conversation she found in theatre.

Chantal Bilodeau kicks off the series Theatre in the Age of Climate Change with an account of her trip to the Canadian Arctic and how that changed how she wanted to write plays.

Adam R. Burnett looks at resilience in theatre, how artists seem to forget where they’ve been, and the ethical responsibilities in the production of production.

In this last post in his series, Stephen Spotswood reports on the piece of theatre his students devised, and muses on its successes and everyone’s willingness to participate.

Everyone starts to wonder what they’re creating with Stephen Spotswood on his journey to devise a piece with both environmental studies and theatre majors.

The Dreary Coast is a site-specific immersive work that took place in Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal, and used elements of Greek and Roman mythology, Dante’s Inferno, black metal music, and the canal’s actual history to journey its audience through one of the most polluted waterways in the United States.

The class is split almost right down the middle between theater majors and environmental studies students, with a few crossovers. That first day we have a much more immediate question to answer: Did this mix of drama and science students have the capacity to merge together into the ersatz devising company we needed them to be? Would they be open-minded, generous, and willing to play? If not, the entire semester would be an uphill process.

Karen Malpede shares insight into the importance and compelling nature of climate dramas.

Summer Banks offers an overview of eco-theatre and talks about her experience watching Katie Mitchell's production of Atmen.

Eco theater is not meant as a protest or an art installation at a climate change conference. It is a complete and independent artistic practice that happens to focus on ecological issues.

In this installment of the series From Scarcity to Abundance: Capturing the Moment for the New Work Sector, Meiyin Wang hypothesizes on the future of theatre and the impact it can have on the world.