A Tisch Drama Community Week Collaboration: The Role of Theatre in Addressing Climate Change

October 26, 2023
7:00-8:30 pm
Studio 3, 2nd Floor, 721 Broadway 

In celebration of Community Week at the Tisch School of the Arts, join Tisch Drama for staged readings of plays from the Climate Change Theater Action Festival (CCTA) 2023 and a rich discussion with student and professional panelists about the role of theater in addressing climate change. 

The CCTA 2023 is a worldwide festival of short plays about the climate crisis that brings communities together and encourages them to take local and global action on climate. The festival is a collaboration between the Arts & Climate Initiative and the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts. The Drama Department is collaborating with the Artists in Action (AIA) student organization at NYU to produce this event. AIA unites Tisch by providing opportunities to speak up through utilizing artistic skills, volunteer opportunities via partnerships with arts-based organizations, and introducing students to socially engaged artists. 

Join us during Community Week for an inspiring evening of performances by students and discussion! Snacks provided!  

PANELISTS

Tomi Maud Tsunoda

Tomi M. Tsunoda (she/her) is an Associate Arts Professor and Chair at the Department of Drama. She received her BFA in Drama from NYU, and her MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College.

Her current projects combine both practical and critical work in dramaturgy, progressive arts pedagogy, fiber art, literary non-fiction, eco-philosophy, facilitation, and transformative justice, putting these fields into conversation as a way to address sustainable practice and systemic and cultural change.

Anika Larsen

Anika Larsen has performed on Broadway in Avenue Q, Xanadu, All Shook Up, Rent, and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical for which she was nominated for a Tony for best Actress in a Musical.  Anika wrote and performed in a musical called Shafrika, The White Girl about her childhood growing up in Cambridge, Massachusetts with nine brothers and sisters from different races and countries. She majored in theatre at Yale University and is a proud member of Actor's Equity.  

After reading yet another dire report about the climate crisis, Anika decided she had to be able to tell her children she really tried to help fight for their planet. She joined the Broadway Green Alliance and has become such a passionate ambassador for the Global Goals for Sustainability that she created “The Broadway Vlog to Save the Planet” for the Broadway Podcast Network. She is inspired by the climate revolution, which has helped her go from feeling helpless and hopeless to helpful and hopeful.

Véro Matheny

Véro Matheny (she/they) is a senior at NYU Tisch Drama. She did her primary training at Playwright’s Horizons Theater School (PHTS), spent her junior year at The Classical Studio, and is currently studying at the Experimental Theater Wing.

She recently debuted her directorial and writing with HomeBody, a queer modern folk tale. Performance credits include The Winter’s Tale (Shepherd’s Son/Florizel/Mamillius), The Classical Studio; butterfly and ernie went looking for the birds (Butterfly), PHTS; and dæmon (divisor/ensemble), Tisch Drama MainStage.

Emily Mendelsohn

Emily Mendelsohn is a theater director working at the intersection of aesthetic experiment, contemplative action, and social transformation.
As a core member of Theater without Borders, she participated in crafting the Climate Lens Playbook. With an ensemble of artists from East Africa and the US, she staged Erik Ehn’s Maria Kizito, Deborah Asiimwe’s Cooking Oil, and Doreen Baingana’s Hills of Salt and Sugar in the US, Rwanda, and Uganda. She teaches at NYU Tisch Drama Theater Studies, Playwright’s Horizons Theater School, and the School of Visual Arts.

Claire McGinlay

Claire McGinlay (she/her) is a senior at NYU Tisch, where she has trained at Playwrights Horizons Theatre School (PHTS) and Experimental Theatre Wing, and will be studying abroad in Berlin next semester. She does a lil bit of everything and recently made her directorial and writing debut with HomeBody (Tisch Student Works 2023). Recent credits include in lucem (devisor, Tisch Drama Stage), Cabaret (Asst. Lighting, TNT), Así (dramaturg, PHTS), the bakkhai (Agave, PHTS).

Sanna Izmirlian

Sanna Izmirlian began her climate activism journey with the Sunrise Movement at NYU. She worked with them during their campaign calling on NYU to divest from fossil fuel companies and private prisons. In fall 2021, she worked as the assistant director on a play commission at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. The play, which was in workshop throughout the rehearsal process, was set in NYC in the near future during a time of climate catastrophe. Using her experience, she was able to guide actors dramaturgically on what it means to be a climate activist, what kind of legislation they've been begging for, etc. This fall, in her Climate Action and Research Theatre class, she will be devising an original work with her peers.