Theatre in The Climate Crisis

Looming beyond C19, we are facing a crisis of unprecedented proportions. The earth, our home, is heating dangerously - forests are burning, seas rising and wildlife great and small is disappearing before our very eyes. Storms, droughts, wildfires and floods are killing more people in every corner of the world every year. We must act. As individuals, as societies, as nations and as theatre makers.

Across 2020 we hosted a series of events with the Young Vic, bringing together theatre makers of all disciplines to provoke, engage and hopefully to inspire radical action for Climate Justice on our stages and in the way we make our work individually and collaboratively.

Climate Crisis resources shared alongside these events.

Previous Events

The Climate and Ecological Emergency - How does it affect the arts?
16 January 2020 Young Vic
This will be the first session to kick off this series of events and discussions. Learn more about the twin climate and ecological emergency we are facing. This will be a Q&A led by Metta Theatre and Dan de la Motte from the Young Vic about how theatre artists are, and should be, responding.
With Will Reynolds (Metta Theatre), Daniel Harrison (Young Vic) and Directors Megan Cronin & Zoe Lafferty.

Reframing the Climate Crisis: Climate Justice Now
6 February 2020 Young Vic
For two years the Young Vic has taken part in the London Theatre Consortium’s Artist Climate Lab. This was an opportunity for all LTC theatres to send an artist on a residential week long Lab, exploring questions about how their work can be informed and shaped by issues relating to climate justice and the climate crisis. Last year nine LTC theatres sent artists to participate, and they have gone on to develop a range of projects separately and together. The Lab was curated by Dan de la Motte (also of the Young Vic) and the theatre’s sponsored artist was writer/director Megan Cronin (Carnation for a Song).
Dan and Megan will talk through their learning from the event and provide provocations and challenges.
With Daniel Harrison (Young Vic) and Director Megan Cronin.

Constant Growth: Upscaling & Sustainability - is bigger always better?
7 May 2020 Online
Cast size, design budget, prosc width, audience capacity, turnover, reach, length of run, our next job, the next paycheck ...
Our ability to make work, get it on, make a living, and keep doing it seems to predicated on the idea of constant growth, bigger is better. But is it? How do we continue making the work we want to make in a sustainable world? Do we need to upscale? And if so, ho do we do that without breaking the world we life in?
With Poppy Burton-Morgan & Will Reynolds (Metta Theatre), Director Fumi Gomez & Mark Godber (Arts Admin).

The Crisis On Stage - How do we engage with the climate and ecological emergency in our work?
4 June 2020 Online
Theatre productions engaging with the climate crisis in their writing or design have been relatively few and far between, and that is only changing slowly - what has made it so hard to meaningfully put the climate and ecological catastrophe on stage? And how can we shake things up to make sure that this existential threat to all of humanity is getting the cultural attention we need it to?
With Poppy Burton-Morgan and Will Reynolds (Metta Theatre) & Tim Jackson, playwright and director of Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity

Acting with Urgency - How can theatre deal with the existential threat of the climate emergency?
25 June 2020 Online
"I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is." Greta Thunberg, Jan 2019.
Theatres around the country are finally starting to wake up and engage with the climate crisis - taking action to reduce their carbon emissions and making work engaging with the crisis and issues of climate justice. But are we just rearranging the deckchairs while the Titanic sinks? How can we be radical and act with the urgency we need to? What will our sector and our work look and feel like when we break away from Business As Usual?
With Will Reynolds (Metta Theatre), Polly Gifford (Complicité & Culture Declares Emergency).

Artist/Scientist Speed Networking
13 Jan 2021 Online
Meet activists & those researching the climate & ecological emergency; find new collaborators, inspiration for your next piece of work or simply find out more about what scientists really do!

Theatre/Science Collaboration - Bringing Climate Science into the Rehearsal Room.
10th March 2021 Online
What is it like to collaborate with scientists? How do I find great scientific collaborators? How do we integrate their research and take advantage of their knowledge to make great theatre? Join us for a panel Q&A and group discussions with the chance to meet scientists from different disciplines.