The script for "CO2--We're an It"

Here are the words for a climate rap monologue, spoken from Carbon's perspective. Your torso is Carbon, while your outstretched fists are Oxygens. Here's a video of me performing it at the Trenton Library.

CO2--WE'RE AN IT

We're an it, not a he, not a she.

LGBT has nothin' on us three,

'Cause we're CO2, you see?

Just a little bit of matter that never used to matter.

You thought you knew us. We were harmless. We were good.

We fed the plants. We kept the planet 

Nice and warm in a cold, cold universe. 

We never did no one no harm.

We're just an eentsy, weentsy bit of nothing you can see,

Nothing you can smell, nothing you can feel.

Hard to think we're really real,

And that we ... could steal.

It's just not fair, what they say about us.

We're a real do-gooder. 

We carry carbon from the dead

Back to your garden bed,

On the wings of oxygen.

The plants, they eat us, to make life anew.

It's true! We're a miracle forever in the making.

Okay, it's also true, a long time ago, 

There were too many of us, 

Doing too much good.

The planet was way too hot,

So nature buried a whole lot,

Of our carbon, underground.

The earth was cooler, and life was good,

'Till all that carbon, underground, was found.

Uh, oh.

Coal, oil, natural gas, enough down under to last and last.

They dug me up, and burned me up,

And up and up I went, 

On the wings of oxygen,

Doing good, so much good,

Too much good.

The seasons, they grew hotter.

What once was lots was now a whole lot lotta.

The oceans looked so placid,

But we were turning them ... to acid.

Tiny seas shells turning flacid.

Look it up, look it up, look it up.

The less carbon stored, the more in store to shake civilization to the core.

We could say more, but we're CO2, and we can't talk.

You didn't hear what we just said.

You can't see us.

But we're here, and bit by bit

We're building up to steal those seasons you hold so dear.

Some people still think we're nothin',

And so they do nothin',

While somethin' is doin' a whole lotta somethin',

To change the world forever.

People go to movies about big mean monsters

That want to destroy the world, and almost do it,

But are stopped, just at the last moment,

While outside, all the eeny, weeny, teentsy weentsy, 

Little old we's,

That no one can feel or smell or see,

With no ill intent, no sickness or disease,

Turn the skies and seas ... into eternal ... enemies.

Don't make us do this. Don't burn me up.

Let oxygen be oxygen, 

To nourish life and not machines.

Find energy above the ground,

And leave the carbon underground,

So that all the seasons can stick around,

And all the people, yet to come,

Will think you clever.

Look at us. We work together.

You can, too, to save the weather.

A Sampling of Climate Change Theater

Original theatrical sketches from our recent performance at Fahs Theater in Princeton.

THE TENSE FAMILY

 

EARTH LOGIC IN SPACE

CLIMATE IN A MINUTE

CARBON DATING

SHAKESPEARE'S TITANIA

Fahs Theater Performance a Great Success

Update: A full-length video of the show is now available on youtube. 

A full room gave a standing ovation to Climate Cabaret's first performance at the Fahs Theater in Princeton. The show offered wit, insight and beauty in theatrical sketches and songs about the defining issue of our time.

The show began with a poem written and performed by a carbon dioxide molecule,

and featured an appearance by Titania from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, who warned of a "distemperature".

Climate Cabaret standards like "Earth Logic in Space" and "Carbon Dating" mixed with more recent sketches: "Headed for a Cliff" and "The Tense Family."

Midway through we debuted Sam Russell's new film, "The King's Speech on Climate Change," which grew out of our climate-adaptation of The King's Speech, and stars our own Fred Dennehy.

Performing were Cheryl Anne Jones, Basha Parmet, Fred Dennehy, and Steve Hiltner.

Thanks to Dunbar Birnie and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton for sponsoring and hosting the performance, and to the local chapter of Citizens' Climate Lobby for their support and inspiration. Thanks also to Perry Jones and Alison Cote for lighting assistance, and videographer Chuck McEnroe for documenting the evening.

All theatrical sketches and songs written or adapted by Stephen K. Hiltner

The King's Speech on Climate Change

One of Climate Cabaret's theatrical sketches--a climate-adapted version of The King's Speech, has been made into a film by filmmaker Sam Russell. The five minute film stars Fred Dennehy as King George VI, with script and concept by Steve Hiltner, and James Degnen producer. Sam did a beautiful job with this movie, which has been shown on Climate Monitor TV and is being submitted to environmental film festivals.

The film can be viewed on Sam Russell's website:

The King's Speech on Climate Change from Sam Russell on Vimeo.

Free Show January 18

Come on Friday, Jan. 18, to a free performance of Climate Cabaret's original theatrical sketches and climate-adapted songs at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton. Gather at 7:00 for light refreshments. Show starts at 7:30pm.

Thanks to our generous Unitarian hosts for allowing us to use their Sophia Fahs Theater, a wonderful little theater which, among other things, long ago served as the birthplace of McCarter Theater's children's theater programming.

The UUCP's Fahs Theater is located at 50 Cherry Hill Road in Princeton, close to where it crosses 206. Lots of parking. Use an entrance towards the right of the building.

We're Goin' to Atlantic City!

Update: A number of things conspired to make the show in Atlantic City a no-go, but the good news is that, in the process of preparing, we discovered a hidden gem of a theater right in Princeton, where we will perform Jan. 18. Thanks to Citizens Climate Lobby for leading us to the Fahs Theater. 

We'll be taking a look at that big gamble in the sky as the Climate Cabaret heads to Atlantic City to perform for the Citizens Climate Lobby. We'll play some sustainable jazz, sing some climate-adapted standards like My Climate Valentine. Titania will deliver her prescient forebodings from 1595 about a "distemperature" that is our doing. The Tense Family will argue over whether the future is imperative or conditional. And, just in case you missed it on the radio, King George VI may even show up to rally us to a great calling.

The date for our show is Saturday evening, January 26, at the Claridge Hotel.

Our performance is part of the 2019 Citizens' Climate Lobby Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference:
Gambling with Climate Risk: bipartisan challenges and opportunities. Friday, January 25, 3pm - Sunday, January 27, 12pm
Atlantic City, NJ

Attendees can register for one day or all three.
Early bird registration available through December 30th ($95), Students 50% off all tickets

While in Atlantic City, place your bet on the environmental ethic being demonstrated by the Atlantic City wastewater treatment plant, which blows many a municipality away with its green features. The wind generator in the photo is one of three seen by a delegation of Princetonians during a tour of the Atlantic City wastewater treatment plant five years ago. 

Thanks to our local chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby, led by Callie Hancock, for making this national organization aware of the Climate Cabaret's theatrical take on climate change. 

Dystopia's Lackey and The Marriage of Ignorance and Arrogance

The 8th annual New Jersey One-Minute Play Festival brought together 8 directors and 40 actors to perform 60 one-minute plays by 30 playwrights. No small organizational feat, but #1MPF, which I believe was conceived in NJ, does this all over the country and overseas.

Again this year I supplied two plays having to do with climate change. One is a dark chant, in which the characters are relentlessly pulling carbon out of the ground, encouraged by indifferent leaders and an economy that is blind to future consequence. Finally, one actor stops and, getting the others' attention, says she's tired of being dystopia's lackey.

 The other play is a satirical version of a marriage between ignorance and arrogance, after which the minister tells everyone present, "You may now kiss the future ... goodbye."

Performance at Labyrinth Bookstore, June 13, 6pm

Climate Cabaret returns to Labyrinth Bookstore for a performance of some new material, including climate adaptations of Shakespeare's Titania, and The King's Speech, along with some Sustainable Jazz.

In Climate Cabaret, theater and music combine to find comedy, poignancy and beauty in the greatest challenge of our time--our relationship to nature--both inner and outer. The earth--its needs and vulnerabilities--can be better understood if thought of as a body with surprising parallels to our own. In this cabaret of life on earth, molecules become characters, and classic songs are "climate-adapted" to speak of human folly and love for a planet.

Featured actors are Cheryl Jones, Basha Parmet, Kitty Getlik, and Fred Dennehy. Phil Orr on piano. All scripts and music by musician and naturalist Steve Hiltner, best known for his writings at PrincetonNatureNotes.org.

Taking Climate Theater to the Schools

Many people have commented that we should perform our climate change theater in schools. With our next show coming up on June 13, 6pm, at the Labyrinth Bookstore in Princeton, I made a solo journey to Littlebrook Elementary in Princeton to perform CO2--We're an It for 4th and 5th graders during Science Day. Six classes came through for 20 minutes each, enough time to discuss climate change, then perform for them as a carbon dioxide molecule. Aiding the discussion were a few props: a collection of C's, O's and H's, and an exhaust pipe. Together, we found names for things like H2O and CH4 and CO2, and talked about how even good things can be trouble if there's too much of them, whether it be water in a basement or too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Next time they look at a car, they may remember how closed windows create a greenhouse effect. They may notice the exhaust pipe tucked underneath, and think about how the invisible gases coming out of it are transforming the world they will live in this century.

Those ten minutes of discussion were aimed at assisting in their understanding the playfully serious theater sketch that followed, in which CO2 tells the story of how a tiny, invisible, odorless, wonderful and seemingly harmless molecule is, through our doing, turning "the skies and seas into eternal enemies."

Science Day at Littlebrook, by the way, is an extraordinary event, organized by parents Jenny Ludmer and Molly Jones, along with science teacher Martha Friend.

If We Only Had a Brain

At a recent performance, the star of the show, planet earth, stood front and center. One recurring theme of climate change is that, though we are individually very intelligent, that intelligence is often not expressed collectively. We are, collectively, faced with a choice, to adapt now to reduce climate change's impact later, or be forced to adapt much more later on, as changing climate wreaks increasing havoc with our lives. Our courage, generosity and resourcefulness are on full display any time disaster strikes, amply demonstrated during last year's hurricane season. At those times, we display a powerful, heroic sense of teamwork and unity. Why don't we exercise these admirable traits to shift now, collectively and as individuals, away from those carbon-based fuels that serve present needs but endanger the future?

To highlight this vexing lack of collective intelligence, Climate Cabaret has "climate-adapted" the wonderful 1939 lyrics by Yip Harburg in The Wizard of Oz.

If We Only Had a Brain

The carbonated version

(Adapted by Stephen Hiltner, from the original lyrics by Yip Harburg)

We could while away the hours,

Conferrin' with the flowers

Consultin' with the rain.

Had we listened to the warnings

We’d have conquered global warming

If we only had a brain.

We’d be givin’ back to nature,

And tell the legislature

To stop being so insane.

Solar panels we’d be linkin’

Of the future we’d be thinkin’

If we only had a brain.

Oh I, can’t tell you why our cities are near the shore.

No one will remember what was there before.

If they all flood, we’ll build some more.

Oh, the oceans wouldn’t be risin’

And continents downsizin’--

A future full of pain.

We’d have listened to Al’s story,

Taken heed of allegory,

If we only had a brain.