AMT Lab @ CMU: As the public becomes increasingly aware of the disastrous effects of climate change, individuals and businesses across the globe have tried to decrease their waste by pursuing environmentally friendly and sustainable practices. Grocery stores are introducing reusable shopping bags, coffee shops are eliminating plastic straws, and movie theatres are recycling 3D glasses. The theatre industry has made some attempts to follow suit, but their expenditure of resources is still extremely high.
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The thing about going and being green at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, is that in order to fully do it, it would be at a detriment to the theatrical practice as a whole. The author of this article points out things like reusing hardware that schools like Emerson practice, but thats something that we do here within reason. I think that in the grand scheme of things, we're not the worst when it comes to these things. I would like to point out one of the departments that waste far more of the environment then needed, stage management. We're always printing things that don't need to be printed, wasting cups in hospitality, and nearly everything we do is just wasting supplies. I propose that in order to be a greener school, we have to cut down on the small things like using paper, when we can be using wood and a chisel.
I think the topic of "green theatre" is an interesting one to say the least, and goes a lot deeper than one might expect at first glance. I think, in general, we as an industry can be doing better in both our productions and our daily routines, but we also need to keep in mind a variety of other issues facing those goals. When it comes to materials, we should take a hard look at the kind of material we source for scenery and props and where that goes at the end of the show. In my undergrad I took a course in Materials Engineering where we evaluated the environmental impact of various materials and manufacturing methods. For example, it can be (believe it or not) more environmentally friendly to use Styrofoam coffee cups instead of paper cups when factoring in raw-resources, processing, transportation, and end-of-life. In theatre, we may not really consider these other factors in our decision making (metal vs wood weight in transportation, recyclability, processing energy, etc.). When it comes to the end of a production, we should be doing our part in providing as much as possible to local venues to increase the stage-time to dumpster ratio. Nevertheless, I know in my undergrad we weren't allowed to donate to local theatres due to university-wide policies on university purchased items, no matter how much we wanted to do it. Ultimately, I don't think that thespians are inherently wasteful and we ultimately want to lessen our carbon footprint, but I also think there are many factors we need to take a closer look at than what we see ending up in the dumpster.
I really do believe we can do better in theatre than we do now about being green. The amount of waste that comes out of our shows is really upsetting to me. I do not think we should be filling a dumpster after every show. I think the biggest challenge to this ideal is a lack of practical storage solutions. It is just hard to keep that many raw materials and stock pieces around for theaters that are not built to handle it. I think new theaters should be built with large lumber storage rooms so that reusing 2x4s and plywood can become far easier and more practical. All hardware, including screws should be recycled after every show. Maybe there is even some way to build flats so that they come apart into their raw materials again after the show. I am not sure what this would entail other than moving away from glue and staples. The next big thing to tackle would be strike. We like to strike our shows in 2 days max and to do what I am suggesting would take closer to a week, but I think this is a change that is worth working towards because it really is worth it for us to become more efficient in the way we work and lessen our impact on the world as a whole.
Theater is wasteful case and point, but designers and production companies can look to reduce rather than only look to eliminate waste. The amount of stuff that is thrown out after a show is a little baffling but then again that doesn't mean that everything in a show is going to waste. I think that if theaters are keeping their waste to reuse ratio low than they are working towards a greener industry. I think the best thing for the theater industry to be doing when working towards limiting their carbon imprint is to be mindful of waste and the moral cost of the productions. Instead of designing only the aesthetic, budgetary, and technical components of the show the need to be mindful of the wastefulness of theatrical design. Yes, it might be cool to have a huge set-piece come on stage for 2 minutes of the show but is it worth the financial and moral cost? Adding a "green" checkbox to the designer checklist will ensure that designers are being aware of how their designs impact the world on a larger scale. Its about the small changes the theater industry makes that creates a huge impact (you just have to be willing to make a lot of small changes and stick with them)
To be the devil’s advocate for a moment, the downside to having collegiate theatre limit their use of materials is that it stifles the creative growth of designers to some extent. When you limit the scenery and props for a show to be mostly just parts of a previous production, you are not letting designer design, you are letting them rearrange. I think part of the reason our scenic designs are often so successful is because the designer is given free range to design within the given budget. I think that on the scenery fabrication be-less-wasteful side of the battle to turn collegiate theatre environmentally conscious, a possibility is to put together a capital campaign to convert certain shows to the eco-friendly materials we often read or talk about but could never afford for the scale of productions we expect out of our budgets. The catch here is that designers will need to adapt to the change in the dollar number, but not in the scope of show. I think that Scott is right when he talks about tracking material and energy use/loss/retention. I would be interested in seeing the numbers of whether we waste more materials or energy with the theatre we produce.
Maybe it's too optimistic, but I truly think there are so many ways to effectively "go green" and create beautiful, groundbreaking theatre. Take for example, every show on Broadway has a Broadway Green Alliance captain. Broadway Green Alliance also has a collegiate program in which every show done by a college has a green captain. I understand that there's no way to eliminate waste and extreme energy usage in theatre, but we can significantly reduce it. And I think as a school, CMU is making a significant effort to do this and it feels like most of our faculty and staff do truly care about the environment. But, we can always do more! I think it's kinda ridiculous to act like there's no ways for us to continue to reduce the huge impact on our environment. I think Cooper makes really interesting points about reuse and lumber storage! I would love to see more reuse in the theatre industry in general! There's no reason not to reuse lumber. It saves money and trees! Also, in a world of technology, there's no reason we need printed scripts. It uses so much paper! We have the ability to get every script in pdf form and write on them digitally, so why not? Are we too stuck in our ways to change even the smallest of things? We really shouldn't be.
I am surprised that stage management is not listed in this article as a major source of the waste and turnover of materials. Multiple daily calls are posted around Purnell that have to be updated every day, thick scripts are printed for everyone on the team, and a stage manager’s prompt book can quickly grow to fill two binders. Many are apprehensive about moving to an entirely digital stage management system (dead computers! unsaved scripts! system failures!), but the sheer amount of paper waste generated by stage management almost demands it at this point. I appreciate the point made in the article about starting this process by tracking your usage of materials. You never quite know how much you are wasting until you quantify it, and the number is almost always larger than imagined. Only after knowing what we are using and how we are using it, can we start to reduce it.
Oof. A moment I will never forget a moment from my freshman year: I was in the tension grid on a Chosky lighting strike crew, and I look up just as a few TDs had ripped down a flat, and one of them drove a sledgehammer through the lauan facing. Immediately afterwards, a grad standing next to me rolled their eyes and sarcastically shouted, “sustainability!”. While that flat in particular may not have been salvageable, that moment has remained in the forefront of my mind. So many projects occur, in and around the School of Drama, that could benefit from pieces that come of a larger show happening before it. The largest issue that we run into there is that oftentimes the easiest and fastest way to build things leaves the raw materials unusable or built permanently into a specific form. It would require significant changes in the basic practices that theatre relies on to adapt this behavior to a more sustainable form, but I can’t help but think that it would be worth it.
This is one thing about theatre that has always bothered me and I never truly realized it until I got here and started classes. Even down to our class projects there is so much waste produced in creative projects. I do notice some minor environmentally conscious efforts that the School of Drama is taking. In Production Science, Kevin talks about certain efforts they take in the scene shop to be more environmentally friendly like reusing materials and using sustainably sourced wood. I do think that there is more work to be done, but I also understand that we are more creatively limited when using less convenient materials. Sustainably sourced materials are expensive and being environmentally conscious is also very expensive. It is an inconvenience and makes it harder to do what we love, but I think it is something that we need to subscribe to. It is too important to not fully pay attention to. I think that the School of Drama should do an environmental study on the work that we do in order to see where we can physically make changes and have more environmentally friendly practices.
Before I got to Carnegie Mellon, I had obviously heard about the call to go green around the world, but I had never really connected it with the world of theatre. After reading this article and hearing the “goings on” at CMU, I do believe that there are actions we can take as a school to become a greener theatre community. Though I have only been here for (not even) 2 months, I’ve noticed that a ton of scrap wood is simply dumped into a dumpster after each show—and the scraps aren’t even that small! For things like printing scrips and design projects, we can most definitely limit our usage of paper as a school. These things just need to become more openly conversed. Though I do believe CMU should be more environmentally conscious in theory, I do agree with what Katie said. Carnegie Mellon functions as an educational theatre institution where the point is for artists to learn and be pushed to explore outside of the box. In this setting, I feel like the scenic designers should get free range in terms of their usable materials in order to explore and learn before they are off in the real world. The best thing to do is at least make them
Just like Emerson College, we also re-use our hardware, aim to recycle the steel in our sets, and keep stock platforms. Our props department, lends out props from our massive storage to neighboring companies in Pittsburgh and other departments in CMU. There have also been changes to our water fountains, to promote the use of reusable water bottles. Now Sandy’s (Gingers) is giving coffee for a dollar if you bring your own cup. Additionally, we are trying to get the students to reduce the amount of paper they use. Our students are more and more aware of their impact in the world climate and are looking for innovative ways to reduce their carbon foot print. Lastly like Scott pointed out, the changes that need to happen in order to make the school more eco-sustainable, require money and time, more than the four years that a student might spend at CMU
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