CCTA

CCTA 2023: Announcing Our 50 Playwrights

CCTA

They hail from Brazil, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, India, Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, United Kingdom, and the United States, and represent several Indigenous Nations. Meet the 50 playwrights commissioned to write the plays for our Climate Change Theatre Action 2023 collection: 

Javaad Alipoor
Klae Bainter
Keith Barker
Nicolas Billon
Chantal Bilodeau
Wren Brian
Manjima Chatterjee
Karen Elias
Nathan Ellis
Kendra Fanconi
Angie Farrow
Annie Furman
Justine Garrett
Emma Gibson
Dia Hakim
Whiti Hereaka
Sarah Higgins

Jessica Huang
Vinicius Jatobá
Vitor Jatobá
Nathan Joe
Aleya Kassam
Nikhil Katara
Ethan King
Himali Kothari
Heidi Kraay
Camila Le-bert
Andrea Ling
Joan Lipkin
Eric Lockley
Jo MacDonald
Thomas McKechnie
Anna Maria Nabirye
Lana Nasser

Tira Palmquist
『 s i g l o 』
Nicole Pschetz
Gab Reisman
Mark Rigney
Carmen Rivera
Juan Sanchez
Charly Simpson Evon
Darrah Teitel
Chris Thorpe
Harley Vale
Kirby Vicente
Caity-Shea Violette
Kevin Matthew Wong
XANA
Haeweon Yi 

For more information about organizing an event in the fall, visit our CCTA website or watch the recording of our CCTA 2023 Virtual Meet-Up on our YouTube channel.

To request access to the plays, email us at ccta@artsandclimate.org.

Climate Change Theatre Action is a worldwide festival of short plays about the climate crisis presented in collaboration with the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts. CCTA 2023 runs from September 17 to December 23, 2023.

CCTA 2023 Virtual Meetup

CCTA

Let’s meet!

Are you considering organizing an event for Climate Change Theatre Action 2023? Whether you have participated in CCTA before or are planning your first event, join us for the CCTA 2023 Virtual Meet-Up! Hear about the project, learn from previous participants, and get a chance to ask questions.

The Meet-Up will be hosted by Chantal Bilodeau and Julia Levine from the Arts & Climate Initiative, and Ian Garrett from the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts. Three previous organizers – Nassim Balestrini (Austria), Shana Bestock (U.S.), and Clare Preuss (Canada) – will present about their 2021 event, and discuss what worked and what didn’t.

Saturday, May 20
9:00 am Pacific / 12:00 pm Eastern
Online

RSVP NOW

This event is free but you must reserve in advance in order to receive the Zoom link. Running time is approximatively 75 minutes.

Launching CCTA 2023

CCTA

We are thrilled to share our theme for Climate Change Theatre Action 2023, “All Good Things Must Begin,” inspired by the journal entry of American science fiction writer Octavia Butler. Butler was incredibly prescient, writing about extremism, racial justice, and climate change some 30 years ago. By setting intentions and visualizing a positive outcome, she defied the odds and became the author of many celebrated novels, winning each of science fiction’s highest honors.

While the worlds of her novels depict the violent challenges of today’s interlocking crises, her protagonists remain devoted to thriving, to achieving survival beyond the destructive and oppressive societies they come from. The climate crisis demands the same kind of imaginative leap: we will create a just and regenerative world only if we dare to imagine it first, and use that vision to guide us through the difficulties.  

We hope you will get involved by organizing an event in your community using one or several plays from our collection of 50 plays.

For more information, visit our CCTA website.

To request access to the plays, email us at ccta@artsandclimate.org.

Climate Change Theatre Action is a worldwide festival of short plays about the climate crisis presented in collaboration with the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts. CCTA 2023 runs from September 17 to December 23, 2023.

Critical Stages/Scènes critiques: On Theatre and Ecology at Critical Junctions featuring many CSPA Contributors online now!

2021, Announcements, Artists and Climate Change, CCTA, Earth Matters on Stage, ecosencography, news, The Arctic Cycle

The initiative for this Special Issue of Critical Stages / Scènes critiques arises from our shared and sustained interest in the interdisciplinary, and, indeed, transdisciplinary Environmental Humanities that we have always perceived as a particularly compelling and dynamic site within which to formulate and locate our work. It is difficult to conceptualise how this might not be the case for socially-engaged scholarship and active citizenship, as the world is experiencing a climate crisis of extraordinary, and, indeed, dramatic – in all possible senses of the word – scale and iteration.

Vicky Angelaki and Elizabeth Sakellaridou, Editors for The IATC journal/Revue de l’AICT – December/Décembre 2022: Issue No 26

The latest edition of Critical Stages / Scènes critiques explores the intersection of ecology and theatre. Within this edition, you’ll find contributions from CSPA Staff and many friends of the CSPA!

Read Issue 26 of Critical Stages/Scènes critiques

Table of Contents of this Edition

Editorial Note: Transforming (Im)Possibilities to Realities / Note éditoriale : Transformer les (im)possibilités en réalités
Savas Patsalidis, Editor-in-Chief

Special Topic

On Theatre and Ecology at Critical Junctions

Guest Editors: Vicky Angelaki and Elizabeth Sakellaridou (Greece)

Essays

Editor: Yana Meerzon (Canada)

National Reports

Editor: Savas Patsalidis (Greece)

Interviews

Editor: Savas Patsalidis (Greece)

Performance Reviews

Editor: Matti Linnavuori (Finland)

Book Reviews

Editor: Don Rubin (Canada)

Plays

Editor: Critical Stages/Scènes critiques

Focus: Ukraine

Editor: Critical Stages/Scènes critiques

CSPA Related Contributions

Global Networked Ecoscneography: Creating Sustainable Worlds for Theatre Though International Collaboration.
  • CSPA Director Ian Garrett is co-author with collaborators Tessa Rixon and Tanja Beer
Global Networked Ecoscenography: Creating Sustainable Worlds for Theatre Through International Collaboration
By Tessa Rixon*, Ian Garrett**, Tanja Beer***
“Mundane” Performance: Theatre Outdoors and Earthly Pleasures
  • Rising CSPA Quarterly Editor Evelyn O’Malley is co-author with collaborators Cathy turner and Giselle Garcia on
“Mundane” Performance: Theatre Outdoors and Earthly Pleasures
by Evelyn O’Malley*, Cathy Turner**, Giselle Garcia***
Ecodramaturgy and the Genesis of the EMOS Ecodrama Festival
  • Friend of the CSPA, Theresa J. May
Ecodramaturgy and the Genesis of the EMOS Ecodrama Festival
Theresa May*
Town Hall
  • Friend of the CSPA and Co-founder of the Climate Change Theatre Action Caridad Svich
Town Hall
Caridad Svich*

About the Editors

*Vicky Angelaki is Professor in English Literature at Mid Sweden University (Department of Humanities and Social Sciences). She was previously based in the United Kingdom, where she held full-time, permanent roles at Birmingham City University; University of Birmingham; University of Reading. Major publications include the monographs Martin Crimp’s Power Plays: Intertextuality, Sexuality, Desire (2022); Theatre & Environment (2019); Social and Political Theatre in 21st-Century Britain: Staging Crisis (2017); The Plays of Martin Crimp: Making Theatre Strange (2012) and the edited collection Contemporary British Theatre: Breaking New Ground (2013; 2016). She co-edits the series Adaptation in Theatre and Performance (Palgrave Macmillan, with Kara Reilly). She is currently completing the research project Performing Interspaces: Social Fluidities in Contemporary Theatre, funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (Sweden). The project will result in an Open Access monograph, contracted with Palgrave Macmillan/Springer. 

**Elizabeth Sakellaridou is Professor Emerita of Theatre Studies at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. She has taught and lectured widely on contemporary theatre in various academic institutions in Greece, elsewhere in Europe, and in the USA. She has published on contemporary British and European theatre, classical and modern Greek theatre, performance theory, cultural and gender studies, and, more recently, the hybrid space of performance phenomenology. Her publications include Pinter’s Female Portraits; Contemporary Women’s Theatre (in Greek); Theatre, Aesthetics, Politics (in Greek); and numerous articles and chapters published in international journals and collected volumes respectively. She is also a critic, dramaturg and translator of dramatic works from English into Greek and vice versa.

CSPA Supports: Climate Change Theatre Action 2021 Micro-Grants to Canadian Artists

CCTA, news

Application deadline: July 2, 2021 @ 11:59 pm Eastern Time
Winners notified: July 23, 2021

Thanks to support from the Canada Council for the Arts and through the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts’ CSPA Supports Program, we are pleased to offer 5-10 micro-grants of $500 to $1,000 to individuals or groups based in Canada interested in organizing an event for Climate Change Theatre Action 2021. 

Eligibility:
  • Open to individuals or groups based in Canada only who are not associated with an institution. (Small theatres without operational funding and students who don’t have access to university funding are eligible.)
  • Priority will be given to BIPOC applicants and applicants from provinces and territories that have not been represented in CCTA so far: New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Prince Edward Island, Yukon.
  • You must follow the CCTA guidelines and present an event in your community, using at least one of the plays from the CCTA 2021 collection, between September 19 – December 18, 2021.
  • You will need to document your event through photos and/or videos and share the documentation with us afterwards.
  • Only one submission per person. If you are part of a group (i.e., small theatre or student group), only one member in your group should apply. 
How to Apply:
  • Familiarize yourself with Climate Change Theatre Action and what is expected of a producing collaborator.
  • Contact us at ccta@thearcticcycle.org to get access to the plays.
  • Once you have read the plays and the detailed guidelines, and have a clear idea of what kind of event you would like to organize, fill out the application form. 
  • You need to submit a budget as part of your application. You can download a budget template below. 

APPLY HERE

MICRO GRANT BUDGET TEMPLATE

Evaluation Process:

All applications will be evaluated by the Climate Change Theatre Action organizing team (members of Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts and The Arctic Cycle) based on the following criteria.

Artistic Merit: Do you have a clear vision for your event? Well-defined goals? Are you creating something that is unique to you and your community?

Experience/Capacity: Do you have the resources, knowledge, and/or prior experience to organize and present this event? Do you have access to colleagues and partners who can help you realize your vision? 

Community Engagement/Impact: Is your community well defined? Are you engaging people in a meaningful way? Is there a potential for impact that goes beyond the theatrical presentation?

Need: Do you make a case for funding, and can you articulate the impact that this award will have on your plans?

If you have any questions or issues, please email ccta@thearcticcycle.org and a member of the team will get back to you.

Climate Change Theatre Action 2019 Anthology: Lighting The Way

CCTA, news

ADDRESSING THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE OF OUR TIME

Oh, what do we have here?

It’s the Climate Change Theatre Action 2019 Anthology! 


That’s right! Edited by Chantal Bilodeau and Thomas Peterson, Lighting the Way: An Anthology of Short Plays About the Climate Crisis, includes 49 inspiring plays by writers from around the world commissioned for Climate Change Theatre Action 2019, plus an introduction by Chantal Bilodeau and essays by Julia Levine, Charissa Menefee, Thomas Peterson, Triga Creative, and Brooke Wood.

Responding to a prompt asking them to “give center stage to the unsung climate warriors and climate heroes who are lighting the way toward a just and sustainable future”, the writers offer a diversity of perspectives and artistic approaches to telling the stories of those who are making a positive impact. 

We couldn’t be more proud of this book, and hope you’ll like it as much as we do.

GET THE PAPERBACK

GET THE EBOOK

Writers include Hassan Abdulrazzak, Elaine Ávila, Chantal Bilodeau, Yolanda Bonnell, Philip Braithwaite, Damon Chua, Paula Cizmar, Hanna Cormick, Derek Davidson, Sunny Drake, Clare Duffy, Brian Dykstra, Alister Emerson, Georgina Escobar, David Finnigan, David Geary, Nelson Gray, Jordan Hall, Kamil Haque, Monica Hoth, Zainabu Jallo, Vinicius Jatobá, Vitor Jatobá, Marcia Johnson, MaryAnn Karanja, Andrea Lepcio, Joan Lipkin, Philip Luswata, Abhishek Majumdar, Julie McKee, Giovanni Ortega, Mary Kathryn Nagle, Lana Nasser, Yvette Nolan, Matthew Paul Olmos, Corey Payette, Katie Pearl, Shy Richardson and Karina Yager, Kiana Rivera, Madeline Sayet, Stephen Sewell, Lena Šimic with Neal and Sid Anderson, Caridad Svich, Elspeth Tilley, Peterson Toscano, Mike van Graan, Meaza Worku, Marcus Youssef, and Nathan Yungerberg.

Lighting the Way is also available from Barnes & Noble and your domestic Amazon store.

Contribute to our year-end campaign! We’re more than halfway to our goal of raising $5,000 before the end of the year. Can you chip in $25, $50, or $100 to help us get there?

YES, I CAN HELP!

About The Arctic Cycle

The Arctic Cycle is a nonprofit organization that uses theatre to foster dialogue about our global climate crisis, create an empowering vision of the future, and inspire people to take action. Operating on the principle that complex problems must be addressed through collaborative efforts, we work with artists across disciplines and geographic borders, solicit input from researchers in the humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences, and seek community and educational partners.

Your donations support all of our activities, including the commissioning and presentation of original plays, our Artists & Climate Change platform, Climate Change Theatre Action, the Incubator, and much more. We are grateful for your ongoing support.

Read a CCTA Play

CCTA, news

Let’s come together to share and celebrate the amazing plays written by our Climate Change Theatre Action playwrights in 2019! We don’t need to let physical distance keep us apart when we can be virtually connected.

We invite any and all of you to record yourselves reading or performing a 5-minute play from our CCTA 2019 or CCTA 2017 collection. 

These can be solo performances or small group performances with the people you live with, recorded on your phone or computer, or group performances recorded over FaceTime or Zoom. They can be done by students as part of a class, or by anyone eager to invest 5 minutes in making art. We’ll then post these performances online and share them with our community.

Email us at ccta@thearcticcycle.org if you’re interested in participating and we’ll send you a selection of plays and all the info you need.

Read a short play for Climate Change Theatre Action

CCTA

We are looking for any fun person who would be willing to read a short play (5 min) to themselves, a friend, a house plant, a pet (interspecies performance, yay!) to represent your state as part of Climate Change Theatre Action. If you are in any of the following states before December 21st, we’re looking for you!

  • Alabama
  • Delaware
  • Hawaii
  • Idaho
  • Kentucky
  • Nevada
  • West Virginia
  • Wyoming

More info: http://www.climatechangetheatreaction.com/about/

If you’re interested or have any questions email ccta@thearcticcycle.org

Climate Change Theatre Action 2019 is Just around the Corner!

2019, Announcements, Artists and Climate Change, CCTA, The Arctic Cycle

WE’RE DOING IT AGAIN!

Climate Change Theatre Action 2019 is just around the corner. Once again, we’re bringing 50 new climate change plays by 50 international playwrights into the world. We’re lighting the way and imagining together how to create the just and sustainable future we all deserve.

To get the project underway, we need to raise $15,000 by December 13th – our most ambitious campaign yet! – so we can commission our playwrights. We would love for you to become part of this amazing community of changemakers. Can you chip in $10, $25, $50 or more? Every contribution level gets you some cool perks that we have lovingly put together for you as an expression of our gratitude.

This is an all-or-nothing deal: either we reach or goal, or we get no money at all. Please contribute generously and help us spread the word by sharing this campaign with your networks. Are you with us?

I'M WITH YOU