Arts & Climate Initiative

05/18/2026

Artistic Director Chantal Bilodeau will be in conversation with director and climate justice advocate Tom King and company members of 'Now Is Still Here: Climate Change Theatre Action 2026' this Tuesday at 7:00 pm EST. They’ll consider the role of theater and performance in fostering climate awareness and action, building social cohesion and resilience, and facilitating alliances across our often competing interests.

A global festival of short plays engaging with climate change and promoting transformative climate justice, 'Now Is Still Here: Climate Change Theatre Action 2026' at the Somerville Community Growing Center in Massachusetts aims to create and sustain a more fully inclusive and open Somerville, recognizing that community engagement is a strong predictor of resilience in our ongoing climate crisis.

A Conversation with Chantal Bilodeau is made possible by a Public Humanities/Community Engagement Grant from the Mandel Center for the Humanities at Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts. Climate Change Theatre Action (co-founding artistic director Chantal Bilodeau) is a biennial international festival produced in collaboration with the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts.

Register here: https://brandeis.zoom.us/meeting/register/jRuc74HnSj2fPddk1z4wQA #/registration

04/25/2026

On Monday, April 27! Students from the "Power, Justice, Theatre & Social Change" class at Miami University in Ohio will perform nine Climate Change Theatre Action plays as part of an art exhibition at the Oxford Community Arts Center. The performance also includes original plays created with Newspaper Theatre. Featured CCTA playwrights are: Elspeth Tilley, Madeline Sayet, Lewis Hetherington, Alister Emerson, Sunny Drake, Chantal Bilodeau, Nic Billon, Catherine Banks, and Hassan Abdulrazzak.

More details here: https://www.climatechangetheatreaction.com/si_event/where-the-wild-things-were/

cc: Massey University: School of Humanities, Media & Creative Communication Duck Bunny Theatre

04/23/2026

On April 23!

Theatre and Dance Students will join together for Climate Change Theatre Action, an evening of immersive theatrical performance taking over UW-Madison’s Science Hall! The performance is the culmination Professor Micha Espinosa’s course THEA360: Performance in Practice, where undergraduate students studied the intersections of climate activism and ecological performance to envision a new iteration of CCTA on UW’s Campus. The event is the closing headliner performance for Earthfest 2026, a campus wide celebration through the Nelson Institute for Sustainability.

Featured CCTA playwrights are: Kevin Matthew Wong, Chris Thorpe, Elyne Quan, EM Lewis, Aleya Kassam, Marcia Johnson, and Chantal Bilodeau.

More details here: https://www.climatechangetheatreaction.com/si_event/climate-change-theatre-action-uw-madison-earthfest-2026/

04/23/2026

Tomorrow, April 23! For Earth Week 2026, the EMBL Theatre Club in Heidelberg, Germany, presents EAT THE RICH by CCTA playwright Tira Palmquist.

"Dive into a heated debate between some angry orcas: Anger is a rational response to watching the impacts of climate change. While none of us are blameless, the wealthy pollute the most, and the impacts are felt disproportionately on those who can least afford it."

04/22/2026

Happy Earth Day!🌏🌳
Climate Change Theatre Action is part of the celebration today with a performance of Homo Sapiens by Chantal Bilodeau at "Climate Communications Through the Arts" organized by the New York State Public Health Association () and hosted by the Adirondack Health Institute in Lake Placid, New York.

More details here: https://www.climatechangetheatreaction.com/si_event/climate-communications-through-the-arts/

04/19/2026

Climate Change Theatre Action is helping to celebrate Earth Week at Santa Clara University in California! On April 20, five CCTA plays will be presented at tUrn14 climate action – an interdisciplinary, intercultural, international, interfaith, biannual, exploration of our shared climate/ecological/environmental/social crises and their just solutions. Featuring CCTA playwrights Dylan Van Den Berg, Abhishek Majumdar, Himali Kothari, Aleya Kassam, and Hannah Cormick.

More details here: https://www.climatechangetheatreaction.com/si_event/turn-climate-action-open-reading-of-climate-plays-speaking-of-the-unspeakable/

04/07/2026

Artistic Director Chantal Bilodeau's latest essay is the final piece in the Theatre in the Age of Climate Change series on HowlRound.

|Chantal BilodeauChantal Bilodeau reflects on a decade of curating the Theatre in the Age of Climate Change series and the ways the work (and world) has shifted in that time. She invites you to contribute your own thoughts on theatre and the environment to the commons.

04/07/2026

Today, World Health Day, is the perfect day to invite you to attend the launch of the policy brief "Addressing Climate Health Through the Arts," which the Arts & Climate Initiative proudly contributed to.

What if the key to tackling the climate crisis lies in our culture — in how we create, imagine, and connect?

Join the WHO Regional Office for Europe and the Jameel Arts & Health Lab for the launch of a timely new policy brief about how the arts can help address the health impacts of climate change.

📅 29 April 2026
🕒 08:30–10:00 EDT | 13:30–15:00 BST | 14:30–16:00 CEST
💻 Online

🎨 Discover how creativity can drive real-world climate-health solutions
🌍 Hear from experts at the intersection of climate, culture, and wellbeing
💡 Be part of a conversation shaping future policy

🔗 Free to Register: https://www.who.int/europe/news-room/events/item/2026/04/29/default-calendar/open-invitation-to-policy-brief-launch--the-role-of-the-arts-in-addressing-the-health-impacts-of-climate-change

Speakers:
- Ananya Sharma, Creative Lead, Hawa Mein Baat, India GundoRSajnani Actor and co-founder of the Solutions Project, United States
- ⁠Andy Haines, Professor of Environmental Change and Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, U. of London
- ⁠Alice Sharp, Artistic Director, Invisible Dust, United Kingdom
- ⁠Heli Hatonen, Senior Ministerial Adviser, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finland
- ⁠Rebecca Minch, Principal Officer, Creative Ireland
- ⁠Nisha Sajnani, PhD RDT-BCT, Professor of Drama Therapy and Founding Co-Director, Jameel Arts & Health Lab, New York University

WHO Representatives:
- Gundo Weiler, Director, Prevention and Health Promotion, WHO Regional Office for Europe
- ⁠Robb Butler, Special Representative for Climate and Health, WHO Regional Office for Europe
- ⁠Francesca Racioppi, Head of Office, WHO European Centre for Environment and Health
- ⁠Nils Fietje, Technical Officer, WHO Regional Office for Europe, Jameel Arts & Health Lab
- ⁠Ameer Shaheed, PhD, Consultant, WHO Regional Office for Europe, Jameel Arts & Health Lab

Image credit: Degrees of Seperation, 2019.©️ Almigdad Aldikhairy. 48 x 72 inches, Oil on canvas.

Lab Partners: WHO Regional Office for Europe, Community Jameel, NYU Steinhardt and CULTURUNNERS

This report was supported in part by an NYU Climate Research Seed Award.

12/27/2025

Thank you to everyone who participated in Climate Change Theatre Action this year – the artists, students, professors, activists, environmental organizations, theatres, faith groups, and concerned individuals! YOU ARE AMAZING! Events were held in 25 countries worldwide, sparking conversations and actions on climate and bringing communities together. And more events are scheduled for 2026!

Check out our website for a glimpse of what we accomplished together.

This wraps up our 6th festival and 10th year. Stay tuned for CCTA 2.0 as we redesign the model for 2027.

https://www.climatechangetheatreaction.com/

The Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts