Theatre Podcasts

Playwright
Thomas Peterson

Playwright’s Statement
This is a play about paying for climate action or paying for climate inaction; a play about who pays, and how.

Producer
Allison Campell

Cast
Somebody — Sam Rose
Somebody else — James Mullooly

Music
* Elevator Music in the Worst Elevator You've Ever Been In

Playwright
Nelson Diaz-Marcano

Playwright’s Statement
What inspired me to write this play was the question of how I would envision a world in which the Green New Deal would exist. I couldn’t see it. As a person obsessed with sci-fi and magic, the Green New Deal sounds too much like a deus ex machina device, a too-good-to-be-true solution to tie up loose ends. The only way I could make sense of the last four years and the Green New Deal was to see it as a narrative series made to entertain those who do not have to live it. And most importantly, to see what happens when your values and your art have to coexist.

Producer
Kristen Wheeler

Cast
Mother — Gracie Flippen
Z — Jadyn Straigis

Music
* Ink and Earth

Playwright
Keith Barker

Playwright’s Statement
This play came out of exchanges I’ve had with my uncle over the years. He is a fervent climate change denier who believes it is a hoax drummed up by lefty pinkos. This play is me writing out my disillusion by imagining a revelation about the climate crisis through the eyes of a Prime Minister who finds himself on the wrong side of history.

Producer
Clare Sorensen

Cast
Prime Minister — Rebecca Katz
Fixer — Dexter Mello

Music
* The Prime Minister's Presidential March

Playwright
Heidi Kraay

Playwright’s Statement
Like many big ideas, the theme “Envisioning a Global Green New Deal” got me thinking from a childlike perspective in order to see into it more clearly and from the gut. Inspired by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I stuck onto the question—what is the future we want?—and gravitated toward her words that “we can be whatever we have the courage to see.”

Producer
Jadyn Straigis

Cast
AZ — Colette Dia
Berry — Farrah Grubman

Music
** Moonbeams by Honor Morris

Playwright
Paula Cizmar

Playwright’s Statement
Most of us know deep in our bones that we have to protect the earth, but what stops us is the hard work that must be put into the effort. Then there are the fear tactics used by certain politicians who say that climate change activists just want to take away our ice cream and our cars, and force us to ride around in high-speed trains “powered by unicorn tears.” But suppose we get to a place where everyone finally agrees to make change—and it happens? And it’s successful! Imagine a future where we save the earth. That’s where this play came from—a future where environmental justice wins

Producer
Farrah Grubman

Cast
Gaia — Aaliyah Dioses
Gai-Ette — Clare Sorensen
Gaialee — Kristen Wheeler

Music
* Unicorn Tears

Playwright
Kristen Wheeler

Playwright’s Statement
One day, I was scrolling through social media and saw a post about a climate change protest and saw someone holding a sign that said, “There Is No Planet B.” Millionaires such as Elon Musk consider moving to Mars if the Earth gets destroyed. It’s predicted that humans will continue to practice colonization on other planets. This play tells a dark-comedic story from a Martian’s perspective.

Producer
Michael Curry

Cast
Azul — Riley Sellers
Illumi — Han Levenson
Zircon — Grace Quijano
News Reporter — Walker Hall
Human — Jamie Nguyen

Music
* Marching on Red Soil

Production Team

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Producer, Sound Engineering and Editing — Michael Curry
Producer — Allison Campbell
Co Producer, Vocal Coach — Becky Free
Audio Production Assistant — D Ward
Student Producers — Farrah Grubman, Clare Sorensen, Jadyn Straigis, Kristen Wheeler
Graphics — Jadyn Straigis
Center Production Manager — Todd Mion
Center Operations Manager (WHAM) — Sara Thomson
Webmaster — John Perrelli
Technical Consultant — Jared Paolini

Composers

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Charlie Berszoner *
Adria Fialkowski *
Ethan Hattingh*
Zev Israel*
Willow Meir*
Honor Morris **

Musicians

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Guitar and Bass — Sam Rose
Glockenspiel and Trumpet — Willow Meir
Viola — Oliver Kelley
Piano — Rileigh Ann Raspa
Bassoon — Zev Israel
Drums — Ethan Hattingh and Willow Meir
Vocals — Adria Fialkowski

The following playwrights were commissioned by Climate Change Theatre Action

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Keith Barker is a member of the Métis Nation of Ontario. He is a playwright, actor, and director from Northwestern Ontario, and the current artistic director at Native Earth Performing Arts. He is the winner of the Dora Mavor Moore Award and the Playwrights Guild’s Carol Bolt Award for best new play. He received a Saskatchewan and Area Theatre Award for Excellence in Playwriting for his play The Hours That Remain, as well as a Yukon Arts Award for Best Art for Social Change.

Paula Cizmar is an award-winning playwright and librettist whose work, which explores the events challenging us as humans, has been produced all over the world. She is the librettist for A Hole in the Sky, a mini eco-opera (with composer Guang Yang) performed at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and the initiator of Sacrifice Zone: Los Angeles, a multimedia project that highlights how environmental justice is a human rights issue.

Nelson Diaz-Marcano is a Puerto Rican, New York City-based theater-maker, activist, and community leader who serves as the literary manager of the Latinx Playwright Circle, as well as the Community Outreach Coordinator for Atlantic Theater Company. His plays have been developed by Clubbed Thumb, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Lark, Vision Latino Theater Company, Milagro Theatre, The William Inge Theatre Festival, Classical Theatre of Harlem, and The Parsnip Ship, among others.

Heidi Kraay pulls myth, metaphor, and monsters together to discover connections across difference. Her plays include Unwind: Hindsight is 2020, see in the dark, How To Hide Your Monster, co-devised plays, one-acts, short plays, and plays for young audiences. Her work has been presented where she lives in Boise, Idaho, as well as regionally, in New York City, and internationally. Heidi holds an MFA from California Institute of Integral Studies. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

Thomas Peterson is a writer and director whose work focuses on the climate crisis. He also works as a shareholder advocate, pushing the world’s largest corporations to eliminate deforestation in their supply chains and commit to substantive emissions reductions. He is the artistic associate with The Arctic Cycle, with whom he has co-organized Climate Change Theatre Action. He has written about theatre and locality, climate propaganda, and the aesthetic of the sublime in climate theatre.

And Goucher Playwright

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Kristen Wheeler is a full-time senior at Goucher College. She has a Professional and Creative Writing major and Theater minor. Besides plays, she likes to write poetry, short fictional stories, and screenplays. Kristen has an Associate of Arts degree from Community College of Baltimore County. She’s known by her peers for being creative and smart. She plays GAIALEE and produced The Book of G.

Allison Campbell has been a faculty member since 2001. She teaches design and production courses and designs sets, lights or costumes or mentors student designers for the theatre program’s season. On occasion she directs plays. She led two ICA programs, one in London and more recently in Scotland. She also teaches in the Goucher Commons—the CPEA, You Are What You Make, Thou Art and a first-year seminar, The Secret Life of Puppets. She has designed sets for The Single Carrot Theatre, Baltimore Shakespeare Company, and DC’s, MetroStage and Source Theatre Company. She performed puppet works at the Black Cherry Puppet Theatre and the Akimbo Festival. She is delighted to work in the new area of radio drama—and just in time as she is retiring this year. Mic Drop!!

Michael Curry is a professor of Integrative Arts Studies and Theatre and is the coordinator for the Integrative Arts Studies major. He also serves as the Representative for the Center for Writing, Arts and Media. He has been on the faculty for 36 years. His current courses include Creation and Meaning, Arts in the Community, the Arts Studio and Capstone for Integrative Arts Studies, and To Walk with Nature, a course about environmental sustainability and the arts for the Complex Problem Exploration program. He has acted in and directed numerous theatre productions at Goucher and in the Baltimore area including industrial films and commercial voice-overs for Maryland Public Television, Laureate Education, the Air Force, and others. He has acted in educational programs for the Maryland Historical Society, Action Theatre Company, and the Baltimore Science Center.

Colette Dia is a senior and has worked with the theater department since 2020. She plays the role of AZ in Dream Song. She is a Creative Writing and French Transnational Studies double major pursuing writing. “This project was interesting because of the overarching environmental theme across the several mini plays. What I hope for the environment is that more people realize that environmental issues are simultaneously social issues and that in fighting to protect the environment, we also fight to protect those most vulnerable to its negative consequences.

Aaliyah Dioses is a junior majoring in Biology hoping to have a career involving animals. She is an active member in Goucher's choral society and Jazz band! Aaliyah was drawn to the project to continue expanding her creative side while expressing her love for the environment and every organism living in it!

Rebecca Free is a faculty member at Goucher, where she works in the Theatre program. She has also taught in Integrative Arts Studies, and has co-taught two Intensive Courses Abroad, one in Bali and one in France. In Theatre, she teaches acting and voice and movement for actors, as well as theatre history and dramatic literature, and she has supervised and worked as a director, co-creator, choreographer, coach, and/or dramaturg on numerous productions in the program. Local experience outside Goucher has included co-creating original site-specific works for the Akimbo Festival and serving as choreographer and movement director for productions at Single Carrot Theatre. As a researcher, she has presented and published scholarship on historical and contemporary French theatre, and on site-specific performance.

Farrah Grubman plays the role of Berry in the play DreamSong and is a co-producer for the play The Pageant. She is a sophomore at Goucher College with an Elementary Education major and a theater minor. She is excited to get the chance to co-produce a play and to be a part of climate change theater action.

Walker Hall plays the News Reporter in Human Invasion. He is a junior majoring in Creative Writing. “I found this project interesting because it’s an alternate form of storytelling, but also because it means something. It doesn’t try and exist as escapism it exists to prompt its audience to think. My hopes for the environment are that my children and grandchildren’s children and grandchildren will be able to foster a greater connection to the environment than what I had."

Rebecca Katz is thrilled to be a part of Goucher Radio Theater’s production of Apology, My! She is a first year intending to major in psychology. Rebecca enjoyed exploring her fascinating character, the Prime Minister. She hopes that humanity will consider the future effects of present-day technology before it causes damage to the environment.

Han Levenson is a senior Visual & Material Cultures major and plays Illumi in Human Invasion. “It’s been wonderful to lend my talents to this impactful project and to help bring student work to life. It was fun getting to stretch my acting skills in a medium that’s new for me and to play a role that’s unlike anything I’ve done before. My most immediate hope for the environment is a rapid transition to clean energy.”

Dexter Mello plays the role of The Fixer in Apology, My, He is a junior majoring in Literary Studies with a Creative Writing minor. He is active in a variety of student organizations on campus, most notably the Student Engagement Team. His passions for voice acting and environmental activism, especially in the realms of temperature changes affecting conservation of wetlands, attracted him to this project.

James Mullooly plays Someone Else in Paying for It. James is a senior Integrative Arts major and is preparing for a career in the New Media field. He says, “Paying for It  presents us with a conversation that basically outlines the farcically adversarial nature of discussing climate change right now."

Tung “Jamie” Nguyen (they/he) is a Literary Studies/Visual and Material Culture double major (with a potential minor in Sociology/Anthropology) hailing from Vietnam. Holding great interest in the medium of radio and theater, Jamie joined the project as a chance to explore these avenues, and to rekindle their love for theater.

Sam Rose is a sophomore Digital Arts/Media Studies double major, playing Somebody in “Paying For It”. In addition to acting, he is featured as a guitarist and bassist in the original scores composed for the show. He plans to pursue further work with Goucher's radio station in the future.

Clare Sorensen is a first-year student at Goucher, with a major in Creative and Professional Writing (with a focus on Rhetorical Writing) and intends to declare a major in International Relations and a minor in Theatre. “What I found most interesting about this project was how the actors got into character and the choices they made. I hope we'll be able to change things for the better before time runs out. I also hope legislation to make big companies accountable will be instituted, as they are the most responsible for the way the environment is now.”

Jadyn Straigis plays Z in the play Book of G and co-produced DreamSong. They are a junior with a creative writing major and theater minor. “I was interested in this project because I'm hoping to pursue voice acting among other forms of acting, and I'm always eager to take part in media that brings attention to the climate crisis in creative ways. I hope that the people that listen to these plays come away with a new perspective about the environment and climate crisis.”

Charlie Berszoner is a Sophomore history major who hails from the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He is heavily involved with the music program and sings tenor and bass in Goucher Choral Society. He got involved in writing music for Goucher Radio Theater for the challenge of writing music for instruments he's never played.

Adria Fialkowski is a junior majoring in Literary Studies, with a minor in Music and a concentration in Secondary Education. They are an active member of Goucher's choral society, and a moderator for Humans Versus Zombies. Adria has a love for collaborative music-making and was drawn to this project because of its capacity to host so many unique perspectives and voices.

Ethan Hattingh, is a sophomore majoring in computer science with a minor in music. “What I really found intriguing for this project was how to reflect the emotion of the plays onto the music. It was a joy to solve the question of “how” that could be done through cooperation with fellow composers.”

Zev Israel is a sophomore majoring in Media Studies with minors in Music and Computer Science. She is the president of the Rock-Climbing club and plays bassoon in Goucher's orchestra. Zev is passionate about writing and performing music and took on this project as an opportunity to tackle a new challenge alongside friends.

Oliver Kelley is a second year Philosophy Major. “This was a very interesting project to work on. I am happy that I could grow and learn from the other musicians I worked with as well as learning the background of the music compositions and all the decisions that went into creating them.

Honor Morris (she/her) composed “Moonbeams” for DreamSong. She is a first-year who will continue at another institution in the fall semester to work on a BA in music. She has played instruments since she was six, — piano, violin, and guitar. She is passionate about both music and the environment and was thrilled to combine the two. Honor hopes to spread awareness about the urgency of climate change — that it’s not too late to change habits, but to act now before it is.

Rileigh Ann Raspa is a first-year majoring in Peace Studies and minoring in Music. She is active with Goucher’s Choral Society and has been helping with the Verge publications. Rileigh Ann got involved in the project because of a love for music and radio theatre as creative mediums.