Climate Change Theatre Action

My Campus commentary is on the Climate Change Theatre Action performance that was put on by Davidson’s theater program. Climate Change Theatre Action is a festival of ever-changing performances that center around the climate crisis. Every other year, a group of 50 professional playwrights is brought together to write 5-minute plays based on a prompt. The shows being performed in this production are the ones from the 2023 festival and are all inspired by Octavia Butler’s journal entry “All Good Things Must Begin,” which is a page from her journal that is filled with affirmations she is writing to herself about her future as a writer. The theme of the plays is a response to a growing sense of concern with the future of our planet, and asks us to reframe our mindset to “The things I want to happen will happen”, instead of just “I want this thing to happen”. The shows are also paired with some sort of action in order to get people to start talking about climate change. At Davidson, the shows were all followed by a dialogue with different people, either involved with the show or involved with sustainability in or around the Davidson College area. 

I think two goals are trying to be achieved with this production, one is that of the festival itself on a worldwide scale, and the other is that of the college on a more personal and local scale. The goal of the festival is simple to understand, but much more difficult to actually achieve. They want to raise awareness about the climate crisis and urge people to start making small changes so we will still have our homes in the coming years. The fact that this festival is now a worldwide event shows that it is at least somewhat successful in this goal; it is getting the message out there and helping to educate people on things they can do to combat climate change. The goal of the college is more concrete: to reduce carbon emissions on campus by 50 percent by 2026, and this performance is just one step in their plan to promote sustainability and achieve this goal. I would say that the event is successful in its promotion of these goals, while the performance aspect is cheesy, the message it is trying to convey is clear, though it is very broad.

The post-show dialogues enhanced and narrowed down the message to become more applicable to the college itself by bringing in members of the community who are involved with sustainability on campus, such as the sustainability chair for Patterson Court Council, Zach Morden, or members of the sustainability board for the town of Davidson. I think their goal of getting this message across was successful, but what I think is not as successful is getting people committed to help make a change. 

On-campus groups either do as much as they can to be more sustainable, or they do nothing at all and counteract all the hard work other organizations put in. It’s sad to say, but actions like this are too small to do all that much to improve the college. For change to be made, the actions taken must be greater and more widely known for anything to stick. If things do not change, then all the time and energy people have sacrificed will be for nothing. Things like the Climate Change Theatre Action performance are a fine step, but it is not enough to tell people the problems, people’s mindsets must shift to the kind that is echoed in Octavia Butler’s journal and have them realize that change is still possible, but only if they start putting in some effort.

Works Cited

“About” Climate Change Theatre Action, https://www.climatechangetheatreaction.com/about/

Climate Change Theatre Action Climate Change Theatre Action. Directed by Sharon Green, Davidson College Theatre, 28 February 2025. Barber Theatre, Davidson

Sustanibility Office. Davidson College, 2021, https://www.davidson.edu/offices-and-services/sustainability-office/climate-action-plan.

Accessed 1 March 2025.Kleon, Austin. “All Good Things Must Begin.” Austin Kleon, 23 June 2020, austinkleon.com/2020/06/23/all-good-things-must-begin/.