performance times:
2 p.m. (masks required)
5 p.m. (masks optional)
The performance will also be available online for 24 hours, Thursday, Dec. 19 midday through Friday, Dec. 20 midday. Click here to donate for online access.
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The LAVA Center presents a mixed-media program of short videos and play readings selected from the past six years of plays presented by LAVA on Saturday, Dec. 14, 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Masks are required at the 2 p.m. performance and optional at the 5 p.m. performance.
$5-20 suggested donation ($1-2 Card to Culture)
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In conjunction with our current Humanities Gallery display, JJ White’s “World on Fire” — which lifts up the work of climate activist Greta Thunberg — The LAVA Center will reprise eight short plays in video and staged readings.
These plays were produced in local venues and online from 2018–2023. The plays come from Climate Change Theatre Action, a worldwide festival of short plays about the climate crisis presented biennially to coincide with the United Nations COP meetings as well as from LAVA’s locally produced climate change theater initiatives. In addition to videos from LAVA’s 2020 online short play festival, which will open the program, six plays will be re-staged by directors Tracy Grammer and Jan Maher.
The production will combine video and live readings, ranging from human protagonists to frogs, polar bears, and Steller sea lions, to natural elements of the ocean and icebergs — representing a fraction of the 140 short climate-themed plays LAVA has brought to Greenfield-area audiences.
The playwrights whose work will be shared are as diverse as the play topics and characters, hailing from Ireland, Rhode Island, Canada, New York City, Jordan, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
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the playwrights and their plays:
Elaine Ávila (“The Rookery,” 2019) is an American and Canadian playwright, a co-founder of Climate Change Theatre Action, and a Fulbright Scholar to the Azores, Portugal for 2019. Her plays tell untold stories of women, workers, the Portuguese, and climate change. Favorite Best New Play Awards: Disquiet International Literary Program in Lisbon, Victoria Critics Circle, Panama City’s Festival de los Cocos. She is distinguished as a descendentes notáveis (Notable Descendant) for her theater work by the Government of the Azores, Portugal.
Nic Billon (“The Polar Bears,” 2023) writes for theater, television and film. His work has been produced around the world and garnered many awards, including a Governor-General’s Award for Drama, a Canadian Screen Award and a Writers Guild of Canada Screenwriting Award.
Philip Braithwaite (“Ice Flow,” 2019) is a playwright and lecturer. His plays have been produced in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and the US. He is originally from New Zealand, but he is now living, writing and teaching in the UK.
Kay Bullard (“Under the Weather,” 2020) is a Providence-based playwright whose short and one-act plays have been read and produced throughout the region. Her plays have been read and produced throughout New England and a few nationally as well. She is a founding mother of the Providence-based The Blue Cow Group, and was recipient of the first Richard Pacheco Playwrighting Award for her play JUNK at Theatre One’s Slice of Life New Works Festival in Providence.
Colette Cullen (“Everyone’s Sorry,” 2020) is a writer and director based in Dublin, Ireland. Her plays have been widely produced in Ireland and beyond. She has written for Irish public service broadcaster RTE’s flagship TV drama series FAIR CITY and written and directed a number of prize-winning short films. Most recently, her play AND THEN was produced at the Newvember Plays Festival, Dublin, in November of 2024.
Lana I. Nasser (“The Butterfly that Persisted,” 2019) is a storyteller, dreamer, barefoot dancer and beekeeper. An eco-feminist with a passion for mythologies and language, and a belief that peace is possible. Born in Jordan with Palestinian blood, she studied and lived across the US for many years, before planting herself in the south of the Netherlands for now.
Elyne Quan (“Pond Life,” 2018) is a writer, actor and director for theater, film and interactive media. Playwriting credits include Souvenirs of Home, Stray, Surface Tension, Lig & Bittle (co-written/co-performed with Jared Matsunaga-Turnbull), and Cuisine for CCTA 2015. She is a former President of the board of the Playwrights Guild of Canada. She holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University and a BA Honours degree in Drama from the University of Alberta.
Caridad Svich (“A Letter from the Ocean,” 2019) received the 2012 OBIE for Lifetime Achievement. Her play RED BIKE is currently sustaining an NNPN Rolling World Premiere. She is editor of Stages ofResistance: Theatre and Politics in the Capitalocene (NoPassport Press, 2018).
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A talk-back following the presentation will focus on sharing news updates, action suggestions and personal priorities for taking action on climate change in the year ahead.
This program is made possible by funding from Greening Greenfield and Mass Humanities.
We are partially ADA compliant: Our entire facility (including accessible, gender-inclusive bathroom) is on the ground floor. We strive to make our programming and events accessible to the widest possible range of community members. To inquire about accessibility, email info@thelavacenter.org.
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performance times:
2 p.m. (masks required)
5 p.m. (masks optional)
The performance will also be available online for 24 hours, Thursday, Dec. 19 midday through Friday, Dec. 20 midday. Click here to donate for online access.
