To celebrate its 21st anniversary, Stanford Repertory Theater (SRT) is proud to partner with Planet Earth Arts and the National Center for New Plays in presenting a festival dedicated to the Environment and Social Justice. The festival features three original works: Voices of the Earth (a compilation of environmental writing); Polar Bears, Black Boys & Prairie-Fringed Orchids (a play in which well-meaning environmentalists confront the tragic realities of the Black Lives Matter movement); and Anna Considers Mars (the poignant story of a young woman who dreams of being chosen for a one-way journey to Mars).
No issues are more important than the fight to save life on our planet while dismantling systemic inequality. Join us as we tackle this challenge together.
Voices of the Earth: From Sophocles to Rachel Carson and Beyond
Compiled by Rush Rehm and Charles Junkerman, Voices of the Earth deals with the troubled relationship between humans and the natural world. Along with powerful wilderness images and soundscapes, the staged reading features environmental pioneers (Muir, Carson, Stegner), great nature writers (Thoreau, Snyder Abbey), playwrights who turn to the environment for inspiration (Sophocles, Shakespeare, Chekhov, O’Neill), native American voices (Crowfoot, Chief Luther Standing Bear, Walking Buffalo), poets who honor the earth (Li Po, Rumi, Neruda, Levertov, Oliver, Lorde), environmental activists (Mendes, Saro-wiwa, Maathai, Goodall, McKibben), climate change deniers who insist we face no crisis (who could these be?), and scientists who know better. Voices of the Earth brings home the threat that looms, even as it lifts the spirit and calls us to action.
Performance Schedule
July 11 – July 14, 2019 (85 minutes, no intermission)
Thursday & Saturday at 8:00pm, Saturday & Sunday Matinees at 2:00pm
Nitery Theater, 514 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA 94305; plenty of free parking.
Polar Bears, Black Boys & Prairie Fringed Orchids
A bold new play by Los Angeles playwright Vincent Terrell Durham, Polar Bears dramatizes the explosive collision when a well-meaning liberal couple host Black Lives Matter activists at a cocktail party. Commissioned by Planet Earth Arts and PlayGround, this exploration of race, class, and biological extinction uses biting wit and savage humor to expose underlying tragedy. Directed by SRT Artistic Director Rush Rehm, Polar Bears, Black Boys & Prairie Fringed Orchids forces us to think through our privilege and priorities. Durham is the author of 10 plays, including The Fertile River about the tragic legacy of eugenics in North Carolina.
Performance Schedule
July 18 – July 28
Thursday & Saturdays at 8:00pm, Saturday & Sunday Matinees at 2:00pm
Nitery Theater, 514 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA 94305; plenty of free parking.
Anna Considers Mars
Commissioned by Planet Earth Arts and PlayGround, Anna Considers Mars tells the story of a young woman who longs to be chosen for a one-way journey to Mars. Written by award-winning San Francisco playwright Ruben Grijalva, Anna dramatizes a near-future world full of peril and possibility, where the digital and physical worlds blend and blur. While intractable diseases are in retreat, and planetary dreams seem within grasp, great cities are lost to the rising oceans, species have been lost forever, and the gap between haves and have-nots has widened into an unbridgeable chasm. Directed by Susi Damilano with a professional cast, the PlayGround/Planet Earth Arts co-production of Anna Considers Mars comes to Stanford’s Nitery Theater following its world premiere at PlayGround’s 25th Festival of New Works at Potrero Stage in San Francisco. As the SF Chronicle review says, “thoughtful dramaturgy is just one of the delights of the show … Grijalva’s characters are just as complex, just as surprising yet deeply relatable, and they’re embodied by a superlative cast under the direction of Susi Damilano.”
Performance Schedule
August 1 – August 11
Thursday & Saturdays at 8:00pm, Saturday & Sunday Matinees at 2:00pm
Nitery Theater, 514 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA 94305; plenty of free parking.
Tickets/more info: Visit stanfordreptheater.com or call 650-725-5838.