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Round this time, we have been transferring our farm to a bigger thirty-acre plot (our present location) with stunning river backside soil that borders the Delaware River. On the brand new land, Greg and I put in additional greenhouses to extend shoulder season manufacturing, and we put in an enormous photo voltaic array on our barn roof supported by “sluggish cash” investments from a photo voltaic co-op in our space. We held public occasions and farm excursions across the photo voltaic venture, attracting group teams, companies, colleges, even politicians to the farm.
With a theatre producer’s eye, I noticed how accessible and enticing the farm was to a broad inhabitants. This was not the standard theatre crowd. The vary of individuals coming to our farm spanned age, politics, and economics. It was a magnet! Their curiosity concerning the crops, the soil, and natural strategies coupled with their happiness to stroll the land received me fascinated by what a creative observe on our farm would possibly seem like.
If we introduced theatre to the farm, would we entice a wider viewers? What would telling tales about local weather change and our relationship to the earth imply if skilled at an area meals supply? And will or not it’s a potent car for calls-to-action for each the doers and the viewers? I needed to see.
Farm Arts Collective
In 2018, I moved my inventive observe from NACL Theatre in upstate New York to a greenhouse theatre on Willow Wisp Natural Farm. I based Farm Arts Collective with a mission to create an agri-cultural hub the place artwork and efficiency intersect with agrarian and ecological concepts. By means of 4 pillars of life-sustaining observe: Farming, Artwork, Meals, and Ecology, I got down to design packages that join individuals to meals, nature, creativity, and considerate residing.
Considered one of my first targets as inventive director of Farm Arts Collective was to coach and create an area skilled theatre ensemble. I supplied free weekly trainings in collaborative efficiency expertise and attracted an eclectic mixture of native performers, musicians, writers, and group members—farmers, carpenters, activists, and designers, who had by no means acted however needed to be taught.
A 12 months into founding Farm Arts Collective, COP 25, the United Nations’ annual local weather convention, was held in Madrid, Spain, and scientists unanimously warned the worldwide group that we had ten years to take vital motion to cut back greenhouse emissions and transition to renewables if we needed to restrict international warming to 1.5 levels Celsius. I used to be each impressed and freaked out by this timeline. As a mom of an eleven-year-old, farmer-artist, and group organizer, I knew I needed to do one thing—however what?
In 10 Brecht Poems, an anti-war efficiency that I made throughout the USA occupation in Iraq, my co-actor Leese Walker and I pose a query: “What do you do whenever you don’t know what to do?” We reply: “ACT!”
Proper—theatre. In response to the local weather scientists’ ten-year timeline, I proposed to the collective that we create one new play yearly from 2020-2030 and name the venture Dream on the Farm. I proposed initiating the venture with this query within the face of local weather change: How will we think about our future? What are our goals?
Dream on the Farm
The collective agreed to my proposal to construct a decade-long collection of local weather change performs. I’d direct utilizing devised theatre strategies and we’d create every play collaboratively.
We began to construct our first play in winter 2020, however when COVID hit, we moved rehearsals to zoom. All through the pandemic, our farm operated as an important enterprise—our farm crew continued to work, we delivered meals to pantries, and clients got here on to the farm to choose up pre-made vegetable baggage. At Farm Arts Collective, we finally moved rehearsals exterior and in individual, masked.
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