Contributors

“What is critical consciousness at bottom if not an unstoppable predilection for alternatives?” Edward Said asked. That question led me to the Climate Crisis Cabaret. In an era of political decay and cultural exhaustion, the theater critic can no longer serve merely as consumer guide, booster, or rubber stamp.

The climate crisis demands collective action across borders, disciplines, and institutions. Theater, at its best, is radical collaboration: people gathering face-to-face to create community and imagine change. CCC brings artists, musicians, scientists, and the public together to confront environmental and democratic crises through protest and performance—making “good trouble” from the bottom up.

—Bill Marx, Founder and Editor of The Arts Fuse

As a playwright, I wanted to be involved with Climate Crisis Cabaret because it unites theater action with our urgent universal need to act on the climate crisis.  We need to be talking about the climate crisis together—in public forums like the theater—and taking action collectively.  We hope CCC’s theatrical representations of climate actions and solutions can help generate awareness, energy, and action. Personally, I’ve found working with CCC to be a unique creative experience, uniting theater artists, scientists, activists and audiences.  And it’s having a valuable impact on my own theater practice too. I hope you’ll consider joining us!

—Joyce Van Dyke, playwright

I am inspired by Climate Crisis Cabaret as an opportunity to use my work as a theater artist to spur conversation and activism in collaboration with scientists and activists. For the first decades of my professional work as an actor and director with Underground Railway Theater, I co-created new works engaged with issues ranging from the nuclear arms race and the Central American Sanctuary movement (1980’s), to homelessness and environmental justice (1990’s); each project required collaborating with a different community.  I then co-founded Central Square Theater, as well as one of its signature programs, Catalyst Collaborative@MIT – which brings theater artists and scientists together to present science-themed productions. I look forward to collaborating with an expanding community of contributors to Climate Crisis Cabaret. 

—Debra Wise, former Interim Artistic Director of Revels, Founder and former co-Artistic Director of Central Square Theater

I joined Climate Crisis Cabaret as a scientist and activist with the goal to involve new audiences and collaborators in the dialog about our precarious future. My physics research was focused on developing new ways to look at our universe with gamma-rays and neutrinos, and as a data scientist I have worked on advancing cleantech projects. I joined Extinction Rebellion and Scientist Rebellion to push for the societal change that is needed in the face of the dramatic climate and ecological crises. The renewed hope and joyful collaboration at the core of this activism is what I want to share through our performances.

—Dr. Robert Lauer, activist / scientist