Passing the Baton

This is a farewell.

2025 marked my tenth and final year curating the Theatre in the Age of Climate Change series for HowlRound. Like many things in my life, it began as a one-off project, with eight essays published in April 2015. Then, it quickly grew into a recurring series, published twice a year for the first several years, and once a year in the last few, with a break during the dark days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

My first essay reflected on the process of writing Sila and the challenge of relearning how to write plays that better captured the social and environmental disruptions facing Arctic communities. Through this experience, I grappled with fundamental questions about the intersection of theatre and the climate crisis: How do we do it? Why do we do it? Why does it matter? Then I, along with nearly seventy contributors from a dozen countries, spent the following decade trying to answer these questions. In the process, I broke up with Aristotle, got angry at the system, and, in 2018, co-organized a convening for approximately thirty artists with my colleagues Elizabeth Doud and Roberta Levitow through the HowlRound Challenge initiative. But what I have enjoyed most is hearing from other artists about their process, what they care about, what they struggle with, and what makes them get up in the morning—even or especially when it feels like the obstacles are insurmountable.

The variety of perspectives continues to inspire me. Just as there is no one way to write about race or gender or inequality, there is no one way to write about how theatre affects and is affected by our relationship to the climate crisis. Some writers focus on hope; others focus on community. Some search for courage, advocate for Native voices, or explore the concept of the artist citizen. Some envision possible futures or probe the intersections of disability and the environment or queerness and the environment. Some try to understand what it would feel like to see the world from the perspective of a bird, a koala, or a plant. And what they all have in common is a recognition that the status quo is no longer viable and that we need to rethink how we look at the world and ourselves within it.

Have things changed over the last ten years? Yes. For one thing, I feel less alone.

Have things changed over the last ten years? Yes. For one thing, I feel less alone. More theatre artists are engaging with the climate crisis, whether that means putting the topic front and center or simply letting it color the world their characters inhabit. More theatres are concerned about their environmental footprint and are taking steps to reduce it. In New York, Climate Week NYC featured more artistic offerings in 2025 than in any year since its launch in 2009. And on a larger scale, there have been sustained efforts to get policymakers to recognize the crucial role of culture in climate action. As an example, The Group of Friends for Culture-Based Climate Action, created in 2023 at COP28 in Dubai,

… advocates for recognition of cultural heritage, creative industries, and traditional and indigenous knowledge as essential tools for building resilience, sustainability, and identity in climate crisis contexts. With UNESCO's support as the Lead Knowledge Partner, the initiative represents an articulated effort to position culture as an indispensable dimension in global climate action.

A decade ago, the field of Environmental Humanities was still in its infancy, but programs now exist at several universities. In the United States, there is at least one MA in Environmental Arts and Humanities and one MFA in Environmental Art and Social Practice. (Since I invited people to submit information about their programs several years ago, most of the programs in the United States have disappeared; they now link to an error page. I suspect they were either recently discontinued or renamed to avoid attracting attention from the administration.) There are many more programs abroad, particularly in the United Kingdom, and several projects examine the intersection of arts and climate, including a policy brief led by the New York University-based Jameel Arts & Health Lab launching at the end of April, and the Sustainability and the Arts project (SATA) at Dalhousie University in Canada. I often meet undergraduate students in Theatre programs who are minoring in Environmental Studies. And during the shutdown phase of the pandemic, when I helped run the submission process for the Earth Matters On Stage festival, we received over three hundred plays addressing climate and the environment.

Climate change is no longer distant or happening to someone else. We are all affected—physically, psychologically, economically, and emotionally—and our stories increasingly reflect that reality. 

Things have also changed artistically. While climate-themed theatre used to see many plays about climate change writ large, approaches are now more specific. For example, playwrights have written about drought in the Southwest affecting Latinx communities and land in Louisiana slipping into the ocean. Others have tackled algae blooms in the Great Lakes, using humor to engage audiences. Climate change is no longer distant or happening to someone else. We are all affected—physically, psychologically, economically, and emotionally—and our stories increasingly reflect that reality.

Additionally, how the climate crisis intersects with social justice and inequality is better understood and represented. The release of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation findings in 2015 and the events surrounding the murder of George Floyd in 2020 changed the conversation and how we write and cast our plays. And as we become increasingly aware of our place in the web of life, our interactions with the more-than-human world begin to find their way into our plays.

Will these plays magically change the world and set us on a path towards rapid decarbonization and sustainable living? Very unlikely. Aside from Broadway musicals, the theatre has become too marginalized in North America to have a large-scale impact. Are these plays essential tools in our efforts to help communities live with uncertainty, address climate anxiety, become more adaptable, and build resilience? Absolutely. Within our communities is where we can have the most impact. The more stories we tell about these challenging times, the more we put down our phones to engage with one another, the greater our chances of holding those in power accountable and building a more just and sustainable world.

In his transformative book Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, author Tyson Yunkaporta writes:

Stories are powerful tools and can be even more powerful weapons in the hands of malignant narcissists. If you want to take control of your life or work toward some kind of sustainable change in the world, you need to harness the power of story.

We don’t have to look far for examples of malignant narcissists using stories as weapons. But we can take that control back. Stories add up and become culture. Culture dictates society’s beliefs and values. And these, in turn, shape our identity and behavior. Even if we can’t yet invalidate the weaponized stories, we can tell our own. We can imagine what should be, so we are ready when the time comes to implement that vision. Yunkaporta also writes “… powerful metaphors create the frameworks for powerful transformation processes…” Is our world a network or a machine? Is nature a resource to be exploited or a gift to revere? Is our primary purpose to produce wealth or to live in harmony with others? What stories we tell and how we tell them matter. Even if it sometimes takes generations to see tangible results.

So. Here we are.

Ten years and several streaks of gray hair later, I am passing the baton. I am proud that the Theatre in the Age of Climate Change series achieved what it set out to do: to “reflect on the ways in which [theatre artists, practitioners, and scholars] use their imagination to create the stories that will support us through, and lift us out of, this transformative moment.” I am incredibly grateful to everyone who contributed and shared their insights. Together, we created a living archive of alternative stories at a pivotal moment not only in our lives but in human history. That is something. I also owe a huge thank you to everyone I worked with at HowlRound—most recently Jamie Gahlon, Ramona Rose King, Vijay Mathew, Ashley Malafronte, and Taylor Lamb. Without their trust, encouragement, support, and friendship, this series would not exist.

The work is not over; on the contrary, it is just beginning. I am not turning my back on it—it has defined my career for almost two decades—but I am shifting how I engage with it in response to broader shifts in our industry and beyond. Last fall, I started a PhD program at the University of Victoria in Canada. I am bringing my years of experience as a practitioner to scholarly research aimed at better understanding how to harness the power of stories to, as Yunkaporta puts it, effect sustainable change in the world. As part of my studies, I will continue writing my series of plays about the Arctic.

Before I leave, I have a request. I would like to invite you, fellow theatre artists, to step forward and propose your own climate or environmentally-focused series to HowlRound. Given the dismantling of so many hard-won national efforts to reduce carbon emissions and the rolling back of so many crucial policies that will shape our lives for years to come, it is more important than ever that we keep the conversation alive. What questions do you have? What new angles should be explored? What voices and perspectives should be foregrounded? It has been an incredible honor for me to curate this series. Consider what I have done as a starting point and take it further. There is still so much to do.