Another exciting weekend of performances exploring emotional responses to climate change will be the final event this semester sponsored by the Vanderbilt Eco-Grief Initiative. This initiative is a collaborative effort of the Science Communication Media Collaborative Grand Challenge Initiative, the Department of Theatre and the Curb Center. Experience mascots come to life, a revival of a beloved 1990s cartoon, a very tense focus group and some old-fashioned school spirit in these two plays developed in conversation with the Vanderbilt community.
In Jaymes Sanchez’s Waiting for Enviroman, participants in a focus group for a new blockbuster action movie must come to terms with their very different views on climate change activism (and a few very different versions of what is supposedly the same film). Sanchez was an Inaugural Fellow of the Latinx Playwrights Circle’s Summer Jam in 2023 and was the recipient of the 2020 Keene Prize for Literature. His plays have been developed with The Lark, Broadway Podcast Network/Rattlestick Theater, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Company One Theatre and others.
Reynaldo Piniella’s Let Us Sit Upon the Ground explores the distance between institutional and personal commitments that university communities encounter as they imagine their future using the impacts of climate change as a case study. Witness a call-to-action performance that includes a Greek chorus, authority under pressure and confrontations of feelings often left unspoken. Piniella has received the Barbour Award, and his plays have been developed by the National Black Theatre, The Lark, the Billie Holiday Theatre, Egg & Spoon Theatre Collective, The Skeleton Rep, HB Studio and the Public Theater’s Shakespeare Initiative. He has been commissioned by Baltimore Center Stage and has been produced by Ars Nova, San Diego Rep, Single Carrot Theatre, the Lee Strasberg Institute at New York University Tisch, The Center at West Park, Harlem9, the 24 Hour Plays and Pioneer Theatre Guild.
These plays were born out of conversations with Vanderbilt students in both environmental studies and theatre courses. Both playwrights visited campus during the development stage to gain insight into the Vanderbilt community’s relationship with eco-grief. These plays will star Vanderbilt students, and props, sets and costumes will be made with sustainable and recycled materials.
Piniella and Sanchez will be back on campus this week to attend opening night and to visit Vanderbilt courses in the arts and sciences. They will also offer a preshow Q&A before the first performance in the Author’s Room in Central Library at 6 p.m. During the Q&A they will be in discussion with David Wright, director of the Program in Communication of Science and Technology and collaborator on the Eco-Grief Initiative, with moderator Clara Wilch, environmental humanities fellow in the Robert Penn Warren Center’s Collaborative Humanities Postdoctoral Program.
Showtimes:
- Thursday, Oct. 17, at 7:30 p.m.
- Friday, Oct. 18, at 7:30 p.m.
- Saturday, Oct. 19, at 7:30 p.m.
- Sunday, Oct. 20, at 2 p.m.
Ticket sales information is available on the VU Theatre website.
This weekend of performances follows on the first set of Eco-Grief Performance Project productions shown in September: Daphne & Florence by Gina Femia and Blue Blood Red Knot by Kristin Idaszak. These four performances make up just one part of the Vanderbilt Eco-Grief Initiative, a project built to use art as a tool to process the complex emotions brought on by climate change. From now until Dec. 5, Extraction/Interaction, a visual art exhibition featuring artists Eliza Evans, Will Wilson and John Sabraw, is on view at the Curb Center (1801 Edgehill Ave.) as part of this initiative.
