Theatre for a Changing Climate (DRA3092)

30 credits

After centuries imagined as passive scenery decorating human dramas, anthropogenic climate-change forces the more-than-human world centre stage in striking and startling ways. This module explores how the theatre of the twenty-first century has responded to a changing climate. Some theatre seeks to alert audiences to the unevenly distributed consequences of a changing climate, confronting the subject directly. Some offers new stories or new ways to share old stories. Some helps us to understand the world we are in and to imagine a world we might weather better. On this module, we will think ‘with’ different plays to examine aspects of climate-change and theatrical representation. Our critical questions will be guided by theoretical approaches from within the field of the environmental humanities, enabling you to undertake analysis through these lenses and to conceive of your own creative responses to the issues arising. Beyond switching off the lights and upcycling scenery, how can creativity – humankind’s most renewable resource – confront the climate?