To Tell A Story About the Earth

After a disastrous first production, a fledgling theatre company has decided to call it quits. But when the local librarian requests a new performance for Earth Day, the young artists have a decision to make, and questions abound: What’s the deal with this weird fish? Who built the room we’re standing in? Isn’t there supposed to be a storm tonight? Part scripted play, part guided introduction to devising methods, part environmental investigation and part fill-in-the-blank, To Tell a Story About the Earth prompts ensembles everywhere to create and share an original show about the natural world close to home.

Author’s notes:
This is a play about devising. It’s about what happens when a small ensemble tries to make a play from scratch. I think of it as a fairly traditional play that I have written in a fairly traditional way, but with one big twist: it’s also a MadLib! There are prompts throughout the script for you to fill in as you see fit. That means that the play will be different every time it’s produced. My hope is that these blanks help the play be of you and of the place where you perform it in a more personal and immediate way than I could ever write on my own.

I come from a devising tradition with my own small theater company, LubDub Theatre Co. We have developed this play together, modeled after our own practices of devising and making work within climate crisis. We have found that talking about climate crisis is a very personal matter, and that talking about the entire earth gets very overwhelming very quickly. The arc of this play reflects the arc that we have experienced creatively over the past 5 years: what is personal is emotionally resonant; what is emotionally resonant makes for good theater; and we need good theater to help us make sense of our rapidly changing world.

And why do I think we need theater to help us make sense of our rapidly changing world? Because theater is made in community and shared in community. And community is our best defense against the anxieties, grief, and emergencies of our times.

In the sections that are yours to write, don’t feel that you need to imitate my voice. I recommend experimenting with what these characters would say, workshopping things as a company, codifying a final draft, memorizing it, and then delivering it as if it were spontaneous material. Remember: the audience probably won’t know that you’re filling in blanks unless you tell them.

The biggest blank to fill in is the 10-minute play that you will create about a subject of your choosing. Find a part of the natural world that everyone in your ensemble has a personal story about, and let that be your guide. (But more on that later).

At the end of the day, what I care about the most is that each collaborator on this project might bring something of themselves that is specific, energizing, and personally meaningful. It is my assignment to you: bring something to life that you care about. And I acknowledge that making something you care about may involve some emotional vulnerability. I hope that you may build a trusting and courageous space for all of the people making the play. It is a story about people who learn to hold each other. I hope that becomes true for your process as well.

And most importantly, please enjoy yourselves. It’s called a play for a reason.