‘The Time Is Now’: Climate Change Theatre Action brings crisis to life on stage

Every two years since 2015, performers around the world have gathered to present plays written about, and to bring awareness and action to, the climate crisis through Climate Change Theatre Action.

Some of these events, held across the United States, Canada and Europe and in Turkey, feature public performances or readings of the plays, others see the plays presented during radio shows or podcasts, or even via film adaptations.

The creation of Elaine Ávila, Chantal Bilodeau, Roberta Levitow and Caridad Svich, Climate Change Theatre Action is held every other year to coincide with the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties meetings.

For each cycle, 50 professional playwrights, representing all inhabited continents and several cultures and Indigenous nations, write five-minute plays about the climate crisis based on a prompt. This year’s prompt is “The Time Is Now.” Those plays are then made available to anyone who wishes to produce an event.

2025 marks the first year Gonzaga University will participate in Climate Change Theatre Action. The school’s production of plays comes through the collaboration of the theater program and the Institute for Climate, Water and the Environment.

Co-directed by adjunct instructor Lydia Borowicz and lecturer Blake Edwards, Gonzaga’s Climate Change Theatre Action event will run Friday through Sunday at the university’s Magnuson Theatre.

Borowicz learned about Climate Change Theatre Action while studying climate change and theater as part of her master’s work. Edwards and Theatre Chair and Program Director Leslie Stamoolis were quick to jump on board.

“We train our students doing any number of shows, any type of shows, any subject matter,” Stamoolis said. “Let’s do the ones that are really important and that really can advance conversations and invite students to engage in these ideas.”

Borowicz, Edwards and Stamoolis read through each of the 50 plays and made notes of what resonated with them and what might resonate most with students and the community. They also met with environmental studies student Sidney Ashby, who is acting as a student producer for the festival, to get her perspective on the plays.

“Some are comedic, some are really serious, some are a bit odd,” Borowicz said. “Some have animals as characters, so it’s a real range of perspectives.”

Edwards noted the group wanted to choose pieces that didn’t just focus on how climate change was affecting humans but how it was affecting animals as well.

Together, the quartet chose to produce “Eat the Rich” by Tira Palmquist, “Homo Sapien” by Chantal Bilodeau, “Laila Pines for the Wolf” by Hassan Abdulrazzak, “Pond Life” by Elyne Quan, “So This is the Last Apple Pie” by Haeweon Yi, “Steamy Session in a Singapore Spa” by Damon Chua, “The Donation” by Jordan Hall, “The Penguins” by Elspeth Tilley, “The Presentation” by Juan C. Sanchez and “The Project Hope” by Catherine Banks.

“The mix is what’s really fun,” Borowicz said. “We have one piece where there’s a mother and a daughter speaking about the loss of their grandmother’s apple orchard due to climate change so elements of grief and loss there, and then we have something completely on the other side, where we have three orcas talking about making decisions about ramming sailboats and yachts and taking a political tone, so there’s this huge range built into all of these plays.”

The group will also perform a devised piece created by the cast – Noah Barron, Indigo Day, Lauren Haiduc, Sara Kern, Riley O’Connell, Jessie Ruby and Yuna Verzosa – and crew. Borowicz and Edwards asked the team questions about their experiences with and feelings about climate change, experiences in nature, worries for the planet and thoughts for the future in the context of climate change.

From those responses, they created a piece that features a collection of voices exploring some of the ideas the students brought up, bringing a local perspective to the festival.

To make it not only easy to transition from one piece to the next but also unify all 11 plays, the team will use lighting and projections as well as minimal set pieces. The actors themselves will do a large majority of the storytelling.

“They do have blocks and chairs and some scenic elements like that, but there are no elaborate set changes,” Stamoolis said. “We are relying on the words and the actors to tell us where we are and when we are, and allowing the piece to move very fluidly from one to the next.”

Along with the plays, Climate Change Theatre Action asks those hosting performances to create an action item for audiences. At Gonzaga, the team will use the lobby to showcase the ways different departments are addressing climate change on campus.

The school’s Institute for Climate, Water and the Environment will share the work they have done in the community, and there will be books from Gonzaga faculty as well as scientific research and posters to help answer questions. There will also be poems and other creative writing and sculptures about climate change.

As a whole, Borowicz said the event asks questions not just about what climate change is and how to fight it but also things like what does it feel like to plan for a future we know is going to be changing.

Borowicz, Edwards and the cast and crew have talked about how the plays ask questions but do not try to deliver answers. In a world where people are often expected to be quick to react or to share an opinion, these plays invite the cast, crew and audience to sit with their thoughts, allowing themselves the time to process new information.

“Instead of being asked ‘What do you think about climate change? What are you doing for the environment?’ and being expected to have an answer right away, when you encounter these ideas in a narrative form that lets you laugh or that lets you think or that, like Blake said, delivers a little bit of a gut punch, draws you in emotionally, it lets you sit with the ideas a little bit and be uncomfortable with the tension that you might feel, because as an audience, you’re not expected yet to have an answer or have a response to what you’re seeing,” Stamoolis  said. “You get to experience them as individual stories.”

An earlier version of this story misattributed a quote and had the incorrect title for Theatre Chair and Program Director Leslie Stamoolis.