SCCF, Players Circle collaborate on climate solutions
The Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation and Players Circle Theater are participating in a global festival of short plays about envisioning a world beyond the climate crisis with two productions.
“All Good Things Must Begin” is this year’s theme of Climate Change Theatre Action, which was launched in 2015 as the festival focused on the theme of climate change. Produced by Players Circle, eight plays from the “All Good Things Must Begin” collection will be staged at the Players Circle Theater on Dec. 11 at 7 p.m. and the SCCF’s Bailey Homestead on Sanibel on Dec. 12 at 7 p.m. After the plays, a panel of climate experts will engage in a community conversation, led by the SCCF.
SCCF Adult Education Director Jenny Evans approached Players Circle co-founder and Producing Director Carrie Lund Cacioppo about partnering to bring a new twist to its Evening at the Homestead series, which this year will feature three evenings devoted to creative responses to the climate crisis.
“Connecting people to climate change in a live theater performance impacts the audience in a way that facts and figures do not,” Evans said. “The emotional connections that the audience makes through watching great theater stays with them and influences them to make positive differences in their community and for the environment.”
The Climate Change Theatre Action plays are presented every other year to coincide with the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which is taking place through December. Fifty professional playwrights, representing all inhabited continents as well as several cultures and Indigenous nations, are commissioned to write the collection of plays.
Cacioppo enthusiastically organized a troupe of actors to perform the plays.
“There are many who are experiencing climate change anxiety,” Cacioppo said. “These plays help to energize and motivate like-minded people to create solutions.”
This year’s theme relates to the need for an imaginative leap: to create a just and regenerative world, everyone must dare “to imagine it first, and use that vision to guide us through the difficulties.”
“SCCF is thrilled to be participating in Climate Change Theatre Action and partnering with Players Circle Theater to bring this production to our islands,” Evans said.
A limited number of tickets are available for $10.
To order tickets for the Dec. 11 performance, call the Players Circle Theater 239-800-3292. To order tickets for the Dec. 12 performance, visit the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation on Eventbrite.