Since 2003, groups of artists, writers, scientists and educators have been sailing to the Arctic to experience the effects of climate change first hand. No doubt the coolest — in every sense of the word — artistic responses to the climate challenge today, these expeditions, led by British organization Cape Farewell, intend to “stimulate the production of art founded in scientific research” and move the cultural, social, and economic problem of climate change beyond scientific debate.

The idea of engaging artists for their ability to communicate on a human scale the urgency of large-scale problems is not new. Through their work, artists can raise awareness, facilitate dialogue, and empower people by inviting them to imagine their own solutions. It is not enough to offer incentives for the creation of green jobs, to establish a cap and trade program, or to encourage citizens to recycle. For a change to be effective and permanent, we must, all of us, participate in the solution.

Visual artists were the first to grasp the urgency for this dialogue and to jump on the bandwagon. In the past few years, exhibitions relating to climate change have sprung allover Europe and North America. The photographic exhibit NorthSouthEastWest (London, 2005), presented by the British Council in collaboration with The Climate Group and Magnum Photographic Agency, illustrates what the North, South, East, and West are doing to reduce carbon emissions. The French organization GoodPlanet.org’s Alive (Le Tourp, 2007) presents the best of animal photography as well as man’s impacton the planet and positive initiatives to save it. The public art exhibit Cool Globes: HotIdeas for a Cooler Planet (Chicago, 2007) features more than 120 sculpted globes to provoke a discussion about potential solutions to global warming. And the list goes on. Yet despite this flurry of activity in the visual world, theatre artists seem to be lagging behind.

In the U.S., there has been only a handful of theatre initiatives related to climate change. The simplest approach — since it doesn’t require structural changes on the part of thepresenting organization — has been to address the issue in content. In 2007, the Chicago Humanities Festival explored “climate disruption, sustainability, and humankind’s relationship to the natural world” with the theme The Climate of Concern. In addition to offering presentations by keynote speakers, Artistic Director Lawrence Weschler, in partnership with local theatres, commissioned original one-actplays by Don DeLillo, Lisa Dillman, Sarah Ruhl, José Rivera, Tanya Saracho, and Brian Tucker. The plays were presented in a reading format and followed by a discussion conducted by a scholar.

A few months later, in commemoration of Earth Day 2008, Martin E. Segal Center, The Graduate Center, CUNY and New York Institute for the Humanities, NYU presented readings of all six plays again, plus new plays by Jon Robin Baitz, Lisa Kron and John Jesurun. The writers tackled the issue from a variety of perspectives — political, environmental, spiritual, futuristic, and even meta-theatrical. But interestingly, unlike visual artists who have leaned toward offering reasons for hope alongside evidence for despair, most writers in this group favored a dark approach, telling cautionary tales with dire endings rather than offering optimistic visions of a better future.

Also addressing the issue in content, in 2007, Suspect Culture – one of Scotland’s leading theatre companies — in collaboration with the National Theater of Scotland and the Brighton Festival, presented the two-act play Futurology: A Global Revue. Devised by David Greig and Dan Rebellato and directed by Graham Eatough, this dark comedy with songs, dance, acrobatics and even ventriloquism was an attempt to put the big questions on stage without having to sacrifice fun or theatricality. Set at a conference where delegates, economists, politicians, protestors and mystics from all over the world have come to determine a course of action for dealing with climate change, the play alternates between humor, satire and thought-provoking reflections, offering the audience a rare chance to laugh at its own inability to comprehend the problem and respond to it. Futurology opened in Glasgow in April 2007 before touring to Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and opening the Brighton Festival.

A different, perhaps more holistic approach to dealing with the same issue is to go beyond content so the spirit of collaboration and concept of sustainability needed to deal with the climate crisis are integrated into the fabric of the organization. Colorado-based EcoArts, which defines itself as “a new way of thinking bringing together people from all walks of life,” embodies this approach. EcoArts partners with science, environmental, arts, indigenous, and other organizations to offer a wide variety of events that include theatre performances. Reaching across fields, EcoArts’ collaborators include the Boulder’s Office of Environmental Affairs, the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Events range from tours of wind turbine blade factories, to talks by Inuit elders, to performance pieces co-created by scientists and artists.

Similarly, with its first season entitled “Planting the Seed”, a new company made up of University of North Carolina School for the Arts alumni recently appeared in New York City under the name 9thirty. Striving to be eco-friendly in process, structure, and content, 9thirty’s artistic programs promise to focus on “grounding artistsand working with nature to discover the connection between environment and art.” The organization is too young to have a significant body of work that supports its mission but claims to have close to a zero paper output and counts among its partners the reuse center Materials for the Arts, which provides organizations with free supplies gathered from companies and individuals that no longer need them.

In Canada, harnessing the power of community and encouraging people to come up with their own artistic answers to the climate problem, Vancouver’s Headlines Theatre spearheaded Jokers’ International Day of Action on Global Warming. The idea evolved from Headlines’ project Two Degrees of Fear and Desire, a series of grassroots community events on global warming which used Theatre for Living– an approach evolved from Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. On March 16, 2008, in more than 40 cities around the world, groups of people created theatre events in their communities to address the issue of global warming. Groups varied in size and experience level and performed in schools, universities, shopping centers and outdoor venues, often addressing local issues such as the negative impact of logging on agriculture and livestock (Lahore, Pakistan) and the systematic disinformation on global warming in Turkey (Istanbul). Breaking the fourth wall, performers invited audience members to create the play with them, effectively involving those most affected by the problems to help design solutions.

Although the theatre is still timid in its involvement with climate change, I believe artists are eager to get involved. For the first time this year, a playwright — American Susan Lori-Parks — participated in Cape Farewell’s sailing expedition to the Arctic. Another first was Futurology dramaturge David Greig’s participation in TippingPoint Germany 2008 (www.britishcouncil.de/tippingpoint/index.htm) which brought together over a hundred scientists and artists from Europe and North America “with the aim of exchanging thoughts, feelings, ideas and plans on the subject of climate change.”

In addition, individual artists like Kathryn Blume with her one-woman show The Boycott, are finding ways to have an impact even with limited resources. Telling the story of the First Lady of the United States who launches a nationwide sex strike to fight global warming and save the world, Blume uses humor to reflect on how every person can make a difference to the global problem. The Boycott premiered in January 2007 at Vermont Stage Company in Burlington and has been performed in over 20 venues — including a six-week run at the ArcLight Theatre in New York City — throughout the U.S.

Looking ahead, in May 2009 the University of Oregon will host the festival Earth Matters On Stage ”to nurture connection and collaboration among artists who share an ecological sensibility.” The event includes a Symposium on Ecology and Performance and an Ecodrama Playwrights Festival. Also in May, Women’s Project in New York City will present Global Cooling: The Women Chill, a series of site-specific performances written, directed, and produced by WP Lab members.

Scientists may provide precious data and design solutions to address the climate crisis. But what artists can do, perhaps better than anybody, is to create the narrative that will make this endeavor an exciting and even spiritually rewarding one. More often than not, artists have rewritten history to correct mistakes, point out omissions and give a voice to those who were silenced. This time, we have a chance to write history before it happens and to put in place markers that will guide us in our journey forward.

And we’re not alone. In his excellent book Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming (Viking, 2007), Paul Hawken estimates that “there are over one — and maybe two — million organizations [in the world] working toward ecological sustainability and social justice.” Let’s join them.

[First published in Contemporary Theatre Review.  Reprinted by permission of the author.]