Environmental Justice as Theater

Rishi Varma explores themes of environmental justice in his new play ‘Sulfur Bottom.’ Photo by Austin Pogrob

Climate Week NYC, organized by Climate Group, returns to New York City, Sept. 21-28, bringing together heads of government and leaders from the world of business, tech, academia, and civil society.

One of this year’s Climate Week themes is environmental justice, and — being that the event is hosted in the home of Broadway — one of the methods of exploring this topic will be theater. “Sulfur Bottom,” a new play by Rishi Varma, will host four special performances in collaboration with Climate Week NYC, highlighting “the vital role that theater can play in promoting climate action,” according to a post on iloveny.com. “Through these performances, the production invites attendees to reflect on their own relationship with the environment and consider the actions necessary for a more sustainable future.”

“Sulfur Bottom” is described as an “eco-gothic drama” that brings the audience into the lives of a family experiencing the devastation of environmental collapse over a 40-year span. The Climate Week performances will include unique programming such as post-show talkbacks, partnerships with local environmental justice organizations, and community engagement activities.

“Being an official event of Climate Week NYC is an incredible opportunity to bring environmental conversations into a shared space where people can feel their urgency,” playwright Varma said in the post. “Theater invites us to confront big issues like climate justice not through statistics, but through empathy. I hope ‘Sulfur Bottom’ adds a meaningful voice to that collective effort.”

Sulfur Bottom premiered in NYC on Aug. 20. Photo by Austin Pogrob

As the post points out, this collaboration demonstrates the power of storytelling in driving social change. Reading about this initiative reinforced a conversation I had just had a day earlier about the role theater can play in events of all kinds with Alex Gallafent, an executive director at global design and innovation company IDEO, known for its human-centered approach to problem-solving and its application of design thinking.

Gallafent’s background is in journalism, design, and theater — he earned a master’s degree in classical theater from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art — so it’s no surprise that one of his pet peeves is how innovation theater is often looked at negatively by event organizers as an approach to engage their participants.

“Theater is a good thing,” he said. “Theater is a craft. Theater is amazing. The theater creates a magic circle and enables you to step into a different sort of state and provides guardrails for you” to consider and experience things in different ways. It’s an aspect that he said he always tries to keep in mind for event experience design. When deployed correctly, he said, meaning in a way that the audience welcomes as innovative, theatrical techniques make it possible for people to “truly arrive somewhere that’s worth their time.”

Michelle Russell is editor in chief of Convene.

Learn more: Rishi Varma talks about his new play — including the production’s sustainability initiatives — in this Climate Weekly NYC post.

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