(This post was originally posted on the TCG Think It, Do It, Blog It as part of  The MetLife/TCG A-ha! Program.)
By Anthony Runfola, Childsplay
It’s been just over a year since we had our first meeting about our Think It! Grant. Today is my last day in the office for 2010 and I’ve spent it looking over the notes from those meetings as well as from our three sustainability summits.
At Childsplay, we will begin our 2011/2012 season planning in earnest next month. With that comes the opportunity to start laying the groundwork for some of the organizational changes we have been talking about throughout this past year.
So, in the spirit of the season, I present to you my Sustainable New Year’s Resolutions for 2011!
- Encourage our artistic director to hire teams of designers that work on at least two shows within the season to see if each production can share resources.
- Many theatres have been doing this already to address financial concerns. But a great side effect is that you may be reusing certain units between shows.
- Challenge our designers to think about sustainability when designing.
- As we noted in our post from this past May, designers thought differently about what they would design when challenged to “make it sustainable.†Of course, we are going to have to be more specific than that when we try to do this for real.
- Include production staff in design meetings from the very beginning.
- Not surprisingly, communication emerged as an essential component to creating more environmentally conscious scenery. I will venture to have our TD work along with the director and designer beginning at the very first meeting.
- Ensure all metals used in scenery get recycled.
- This really is a no-brainer. It will cost a bit more to make this happen, but certainly the price is nothing next to the cost of continuing to dump metal into the ground.
- Be proactive in trying to find a taker for our used scenery before strike.
- To be fair, I’ve tried this before without much luck. But I will keep trying!