Associated Musicians of Greater New York – Local 802: This Earth Day, on April 22, marks 49 years of the largest civic-focused day of action in the world. Since 1970, hundreds of millions of people around the world have continuously come together to bring environmental issues to the forefront. Almost half a century later, this movement is more important than ever as climate change is a reality and individuals around the world are taking action. The theatre community, in New York City and beyond, is playing an increasingly large role in working for a greener world.
8 comments:
It is good to see that there are people who care about these issues in theatre, because it is something that I believe is a rather large issue in our industry especially. That being said, I think it is rather mundane to simply be doing it on the office level of theatre. Every office should strive to eliminate water bottles and paper bills as much as possible. I think where green efforts should be focused on in theatre is the build/ strike process which is a much bigger task to tackle than just recycling. I think that it is going to very difficult to change any theatre into a sustainable business at after it has been operating for a while, because they are just not set up for it. I think that future theatres should be built with storage in mind for recycling as much lumber as possible from shows and eliminate the amount that goes into the dumpster after a show.
I am glad that there is an organization focused on making a difference within our industry, but all of this seems very surface level. None of this applies specifically to theater, and that is really important when there are so many unique ways in which we contribute to world wide waste. Recycling and composting are basic things that every person should do, this is not making a difference on Broadway and everywhere else. Making a difference on Broadway would be finding innovative ways to save and reuse lumber. They could provide incentive to theaters which store their scenery to reuse instead of throwing it out. They could begin recycling programs between large theaters and schools in order to save small budget drama programs and reduce waste at the same time. It will take large scale programs to begin solving this problem, but it is a worth while endeavor and I will be severely disappointed if there is no change made soon.
Happy almost earth day! It’s so important for environmental issues to be at the forefront of our world, especially with the constantly altering and destruction of the planet. Global warming is real. The theatre community in New York City is an important player in making the world a tad bit greener. It’s great that they’re willing to acknowledge that. I was no aware that there was a Broadway Green Alliance, or that it was 10 years old. The fact that an industry wide initiative exists to educate, motivate, and inspire the theatre community to adopt environmentally friendly practice is amazing. I love that the Broadway Green Alliance is built on the recognition that environmental issues are caused by the cumulative effect of millions of small actions and that impactful changes come from everyone doing something small day by day. I don’t think there is a way for all people in the world to live fully green. But this initiative is really good for theatre. We’re a big industry and our ability to make changes will hopefully show other industries how to do the same.
Wow, I am so glad this organization exists. The theatre industry is historically so wasteful especially commercial theatre where they have the money and resources to throw things away, so I am so glad there is this organization working directly with Broadway theaters to be less wasteful and more resourceful. I completely agree with Kaylie that finding a new way to deal with old lumber would begin to make such a difference in the ecological footprint of the theatre industry. And I think Kaylie’s idea for a recycling program where large theatres could give their old lumber and set pieces to schools or community theatres instead of throwing it away is a great idea. And she is right it really would help save the lower budget programs and help foster the educations of the students there while creating less waste, so I think this is a great idea that I would love to see implemented somewhere.
I think that being green is something that theatre is particularly bad at, as we are also very bad at being up to date on technology. This is especially problematic in the area of lighting. Incandescent fixtures consume a significant amount of energy, and are particularly wasteful. This has become better with the introduction of LED fixtures, however, they are simply too expensive to be widespread yet, and theatres are reluctant to get rid of their incandescent fixtures. Even on broadway, where they have the financial means to switch over entirely to LED fixtures, they do not, as theatres are limited in this capacity, as LED fixtures take up significantly more channels than that of incandescent fixtures. Many people in theatre are also relient on physical paperwork instead of digital, which is entirely wasteful for other reasons. Overall, theatre needs to become more ecologically conscious, and work towards a more green future for our industry.
My mom is an environmental scientist so she would love this article. Theater in general is not the most environmental career because a lot of things get thrown away after a show and that is really sad and wasteful. At regional and educational theaters there is normally a stock so that really helps in the preservation of items but for scenic there is like no hope. As soon as you build something it will be trash when it is torn down. That makes me really sad because wood can be reused but not easily so people throw it away in favor of just buying more. I hope that one day theater will be significantly more environmental and that more people care about saving pieces that can be reused. For imaginarium we are using a lot of things from "Pilgrims" and other shows could use these things but they don't. The fact is that they would be trash if we had not taken them.
In my work on the Sustainability Committee, I've interacted a lot with the Broadway Green Alliance and seeing its advice on how to make theatre more green. It is great to hear all the suggestions in this article as a healthy reminder of things to do to be better for this planet. In the comments, there are a lot of statements about how people wish theatre was more green and didn't throw so much away. However, this has so many repercussions that I don't think everyone realizes. For a scene shop like Carnegie Scenic, changing how they build to be greener would mean factoring in a lot more time during the strike as scenery would have to be taken apart more carefully and money would have to be given to storing scenery and reclaiming wood. It would also increase building costs as many ecological products cost more money. Also sadly the moral of the green debate to making theatre more green is to stop doing it. It takes a whole lot of energy to get people out to the theatre and even just for the building maintenance for the building that the theatre is in. Another problem I have with when a lot of people just look at the scenery when trying to make theatre more ecologically friendly is that it's not just scenery that needs to improve. Think of all the energy that costumes uses to get things shipped or how much energy it takes to dry clean or the chemicals in the paint products. Though I see why Cooper said we should really focus on working to better all of our practices, greening the office practices is a huge step in the right direction. Seeing how much energy it takes to change things in theatre, it will probably be a long time before we start seeing major change in the creation of theatre.
In my work on the Sustainability Committee, I've interacted a lot with the Broadway Green Alliance and seeing its advice on how to make theatre more green. It is great to hear all the suggestions in this article as a healthy reminder of things to do to be better for this planet. In the comments, there are a lot of statements about how people wish theatre was more green and didn't throw so much away. However, this has so many repercussions that I don't think everyone realizes. For a scene shop like Carnegie Scenic, changing how they build to be greener would mean factoring in a lot more time during the strike as scenery would have to be taken apart more carefully and money would have to be given to storing scenery and reclaiming wood. It would also increase building costs as many ecological products cost more money. Also sadly the moral of the green debate to making theatre more green is to stop doing it. It takes a whole lot of energy to get people out to the theatre and even just for the building maintenance for the building that the theatre is in. Another problem I have with when a lot of people just look at the scenery when trying to make theatre more ecologically friendly is that it's not just scenery that needs to improve. Think of all the energy that costumes uses to get things shipped or how much energy it takes to dry clean or the chemicals in the paint products. Though I see why Cooper said we should really focus on working to better all of our practices, greening the office practices is a huge step in the right direction. Seeing how much energy it takes to change things in theatre, it will probably be a long time before we start seeing major change in the creation of theatre.
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