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.

Scenes from Climate Cabaret

Leading up to our free performance at the Arts Council of Princeton, April 18, 7pm, here are some scenes from the show--photos from rehearsals, and a videotaped performance. Come check it out in beautiful Solley Theater!

Kitty Getlik plays a therapist in Turf Therapy, as one of her more difficult patients, a Suburban Lawn, works through its issues of chemical addiction and an irrational fear of weeds and bugs.

I don't know, this guy seemed pretty nice, but what's that exhaust pipe doing on his right arm? He said his name is Captain Hooked-On-Fossil-Fuels. Cheryl's thinking "Why do all these guys come with issues?"

Thanks to Dwaine Williamson for videotaping this performance of "CO2: We're an It," in which CO2, not wanting to be the bad guy, tells a packed room at the Trenton Library to "find energy above the ground and leave the carbon underground." (May need to crank the volume a bit. CO2 molecules tend to be soft spoken.)

Steve Hiltner and pianist Phil Orr bring an element of original Sustainable Jazz to Climate Cabaret performances.

Free Performance April 18, Arts Council of Princeton

The tough work of environmentalism needs to be balanced with joy and merrimentalism!

Join in some improbable fun on Wednesday, April 18, 7pm, with Climate Cabaret's "Earth Dialogues" at the Arts Council of Princeton's Solley Theater. 

It's easy to RSVP at this link.

In Climate Cabaret, theater and music combine to find comedy, poignancy and beauty in the greatest challenge of our time: our relationship to Earth. A stubbornly abstract subject is brought home to our bodies and our hearts. Molecules become characters; carbon becomes a seductive renaissance atom with issues. Hamlet drops in to ask the existential question, "To act, or not to act?" Witness a man's tragicomic breakup with his car. Mock drug ads for Lyatol and Gasoline list troubling side-effects. Classic songs are "climate-adapted" to speak of human folly and love for a planet. Witness this unique, Princeton-born production, featuring the musical and theatrical creations of writer/composer Stephen Hiltner.

Performers: Cheryl Jones, Basha Parmet, Kitty Getlik, Fred Dennehy, and the Sustainable Jazz duo of actor/saxophonist Steve Hiltner, and pianist extraordinaire Phil Orr.

This performance is part of the Arts Council of Princeton’s Community Stage Series.

Program is free, but advance registration is recommended. For more information, please call 609.924.8777.

CO2 Has Its Debut in Trenton

What a tremendous pleasure, and really an honor, to be able to perform "CO2--We're an It" in the presence of 150 lovers of poetry, including our nation's Poet Laureate, in the Trenton Library reading room this past week. My torso got to play the role of carbon, while my outstretched fists served as oxygens. The piece starts out with "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 ..." Afterwards, the MC shook my hand and told the audience, "That's the first time I ever shook hands with a molecule."

The open mic session, before poet laureate Tracy K. Smith read from her new book, brought out a wonderful variety of talented writing and deliveries, and a glorious rendition of "Wade in the Water".

I'm told that Dorothea of Labyrinth Books worked with a friend to get the ball rolling on the event, which was run by the African American Cultural Collaborative of Mercer County. The Collaborative will have another open mic Feb. 8, 2018, this time at the Arts Council of Princeton as part of its community stage programming.

Climate-Adapted Popular Songs

Our Climate Cabaret show includes a mix of comic theater sketches interspersed with satirical drug commercials ("Lyatol is packed with the lies you need to get through the day") and music. Some of the music is original instrumental jazz, but we continue to add climate-adapted songs to the repertoire. These are popular songs from the past that are being adapted to survive on a planet transformed by climate change.

My Climate Valentine -- Becomes a love song to a very special planet. "Is your figure less than Greek? Is your jetstream getting weak? When we change you week by week, are we smart?"

My Unembraceable You -- Recasts "Embraceable You" as a love song to the environment, which is constantly embracing us, but can be logistically difficult to embrace back. "How could what is all around me ever leave me, never do, my unembraceable you."

There's a Road -- John Denver co-wrote "Country Roads" in 1970, the same year as the first Earthday. Climate-adapted lyrics turn it into an anthem for the electric car, powered with renewable energy. "There's a road we can take, to the place we belong. West Virginia, keep your mountains. Let the sun take us home."

If We Only Had a Brain -- From Wizard of Oz. "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."

I Should Care -- How many lyrics completely change the song's meaning in the last two words? "Maybe we won't find a planet as lovely as you, but I should care, and I do."