The Civilians, Inc., a theatre company in Brooklyn, NY, is producing The Great Immensity, a touring play with songs and video that explores our relationship to the environment, with a focus on critical issues of climate change and biodiversity conservation. The play has been created with a network of partners including the Princeton Environmental Institute and Princeton Atelier Program/Lewis Arts Center, which will maintain an ongoing relationship with the project. The play uses real places and stories drawn from interviews conducted by the artists to create an experience that is part investigative journalism and part inventive theater. Attendance at the performances is projected to be about 75,000.
A major goal of the project is to help the public better appreciate how science studies the Earth's biosphere and to promote an inquisitive curiosity about our place in the natural world. The initiative also intends to create and evaluate a new model for how theater can increase public awareness, knowledge, and engagement with important science-related societal issues.
Project deliverables include the development and testing of online content, podcasts, and videos as well as special community education and outreach efforts in each community where the play is staged. Performances will be accompanied by post-performance panel discussions with the artists, local scientists and policy makers. After the completion of the initial tour, the play will be published, licensed, and made available to other theaters to produce independently.
built off of The Civilians proven techniques of translating real world issues into theater through deep investigations into the subject matter. While these methods are adept at sharing personal, individual stories, The Civilians were particularly interested in using these methods to educate and dialogue with audiences around more complex issues. THE GREAT IMMENSITY was created through investigative techniques including interviews, research, and advisement from climate scientists. This took our investigative methods to a more precise level, as we were not telling personal stories, but translating scientific fact into a more popular, approachable form. 2011/2012 was the first production year for THE GREAT IMMENSITY, with the initial draft of the play being produced by The Civilians and Kansas City Repertory Theatre in Kansas. The World Premiere production ran for 32 performances including 4 student matinees, as well as a series of public programs and panels. In addition, an 18 minute version of the project was presented as a TEDtalk at the 2012 Annual TED Conference for an audience of 2,000. The full draft of the play, as well as the condensed TED Talk draft, were reviewed and approved by our Advisory Council of scientists. The production at Kansas City included a slate of educational and public programming activities. The Civilians, with the help of Kansas City Rep and our Advisory Board, created a study guide for teachers and students attending the production. We also coordinated several talkbacks with the creative artists involved in the show, as well as a scholar’s panel that focused on enhancing the scientific material in the play and answering audience questions about the play’s content. An environmental fair was held at the theater with over 20 environmental organizations from around Kansas City participating, giving students and audiences an opportunity to engage with the subject manner more deeply on a local level. Lastly, in 2011/2012, The Great Immensity website went live, incorporating input from our Advisory Council as well as a broader community of users Beginning in the fall of 2013, lead artist Steve Cosson worked with scientists, our Advisory Board, and artistic leadership at the Public Theater to update the play, including the most relevant scientific content while also creating a more cohesive, high-quality artistic experience. The Civilians and the Public held a workshop and reading in December 2013, to gain audience feedback in preparation for the spring production. The production of THE GREAT IMMENSITY at the Public ran for 21 performances, reaching 4,256 individuals. We were thrilled to be able to keep ticket prices at just $25 and under. We produced ancillary public programs that augmented the show. This included two Public Theater Speaker events featuring the creative team and climate change scientists; two post-show talkbacks with the cast and partner organizations from the Climate and Urban Systems Partnership in New York; and in-school educational programming modeled after the Kansas City Rep programs. In addition, The Civilians produced an updated educational guide, made available to all audiences, in particular teachers and students. Lastly, after a year of less frequent updates, we relaunched www.thegreatimmensity.org, providing up-to-date information and resources about climate science and conservation, as well as using it as a platform to feature interviews with artists who work at the dynamic intersection of art and science. We worked with evaluation consultant Ellen Giusti to survey audiences, teachers, and students about their reactions and responses to the show. In 2011/2012, 79% of adult audiences and 91% of student audiences rated THE GREAT IMMENSITY as "very enjoyable or moderately enjoyable." There was virtually no variation in this response by adults based on education level, science, or art background. In 2013/2014, we expanded this question to ask audiences in New York, who typically see a large amount of theater in a year, how this play ranked in comparison to others they had seen that year. 66% of audiences ranked the play "above average," while 15% ranked the play "on par with other productions." Speaking towards the effectiveness of the production, in 2011/2012 47% of the audience felt the play left them "more informed about the subject matter" than before attending the production. In 2013/2014, we saw this percentage raise significantly, with 68% of respondents saying they felt more informed about these subjects than before. Overall, we have seen a marked increase in audience response towards our stated objectives over the course of this project. As the Artistic Director of The Public Theatre, Oskar Eustis, remarked in the play’s program, "How do we bring the world’s attention to a problem which can, literally, kill us all, yet seems to have no immediate impact on our lives? It is a measure of The Civilians’ ambition that they are willing to take on this challenge."
