Singing and Dancing in the Rain: Climate Change as Youth Musical Theatre

This collaboration between the University of Exeter's Drama department and Doorstep Arts, Torbay engages young people with arts-based approaches to addressing climate change. It meets them in their familiar theatre-making environment and inspires them to engage with arts and humanities climate change research. They will also engage with scientific research into climate change and climate communications as part of the creative process running concurrently with COP 26.

The project aims to:

1. inspire the young people who participate in theatre-making activities at Doorstep Arts to locate their work within a set of cultural practices that are inextricable from climate change and its representations; 2. empower the young people to effect change by addressing climate change in their own creative practice;

3. enable the young people to carry out their own research into climate change science, as pertinent to their theatre-making; 4. contextualise their practice alongside the artworks accompanying COP 26.

The project will draw on the research expertise of the PI O'Malley in theatre and climate change and the CI Walcon in applied theatre practice. The focus extends O'Malley's existing research (AHRC Outside the Box; AHRC Atmospheric Theatres; NERC Climate Stories) and is further supported by her prior conservatoire training in musical theatre. In climate science, the CI Peter Stott's world renowned climate science expertise and extensive experience includes a unique research interest in collaborating with artists (NERC Climate Stories).

Felicity Liggins (also NERC Climate Stories), brings her experience of climate communications from the Met Office's education and outreach team. This proposal therefore extends prior collaborations by newly foregrounding arts and humanities approaches.

During four weekly sessions the DAS young people will participate in practice-based musical theatre workshops focussed on representations of weather and climate, facilitated by Ferguson and O'Malley. These will use introduce arts and humanities approaches to climate change and its relation to culture and society as part of performance exercises. Beginning with extracts already familiar to the young people (some of which they will self-select), participants will stage musical numbers to emphasise this research.

As a bridge activity, the young people will participate in a workshop led by undergraduates on Exeter's DRA3092 Theatre for a Changing Climate module, offering them an opportunity to encounter theatre practice as studied at University. This activity will also enable the undergraduates to explore their practice in a community setting.

For the second part of the term the young people will devise and perform their own climate change musical, including script-writing, choreography and composition. They will consult with Stott and Liggins as part of the process, tracking the progress of COP 26. A performance will take place for an invited audience at the Palace Theatre, Paignton in December. Elements of the work will also be shared with a wider public audience at the Paignton Lantern Procession.

Parallel to Strand One, a separate group of young people from the Doorstep Youth Theatre will work to create two podcasts in Strand Two. The first podcast will feature their research into artworks responding to COP 26. The second will feature interviews with the Strand One participants.