Spreading the Word

This month's post is coming a little late because I wanted to confirm the details of what I have to report. I am happy to say that Childsplay has been invited to speak about our sustainability initiative this March at the United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT)  conference in Charlotte, NC. Childsplay’s technical director, Jeff Lemire, and I will be speaking on a panel along with Charles Deull from the Broadway Green Alliance and Richard Cuthbert of Global Design Solutions in the UK. It’s the beginning of taking our Think It! initiative to a wider audience and hopefully the start of a movement in our industry to be more thoughtful about how our work impacts our environment.

The following day, I will be attending the Production Manager’s Forum spring meeting. Coincidentally, the PMF has decided to invite technical directors to this spring’s meeting in an attempt to foster a network among TDs the same way that the production manager’s and prop master’s groups have grown. It’s also a great opportunity for Jeff and I to speak with representatives from both professional and academic theatres from across the country and share what we’ve learned.

In the meantime, we’re aiming to hold one more sustainable stagecraft summit that will focus on network building among the theatres here in the Phoenix area. I’ll be back next month to let you know how it went.

-Anthony Runfola, Childsplay 

Sustainable Resolutions

It’s been just over a year since we had our first meeting about our Think It! Grant. Today is my last day in the office for 2010 and I’ve spent it looking over the notes from those meetings as well as from our three sustainability summits.

At Childsplay, we will begin our 2011/2012 season planning in earnest next month. With that comes the opportunity to start laying the groundwork for some of the organizational changes we have been talking about throughout this past year.

So, in the spirit of the season, I present to you my Sustainable New Year’s Resolutions for 2011!

·         Encourage our artistic director to hire teams of designers that work on at least two shows within the season to see if each production can share resources.

o   Many theatres have been doing this already to address financial concerns. But a great side effect is that you may be reusing certain units between shows.

·         Challenge our designers to think about sustainability when designing.

o   As we noted in our post from this past May, designers thought differently about what they would design when challenged to “make it sustainable.” Of course, we are going to have to be more specific than that when we try to do this for real.

·         Include production staff in design meetings from the very beginning.

o   Not surprisingly, communication emerged as an essential component to creating more environmentally conscious scenery. I will venture to have our TD work along with the director and designer beginning at the very first meeting.

·         Ensure all metals used in scenery get recycled.

o   This really is a no-brainer. It will cost a bit more to make this happen, but certainly the price is nothing next to the cost of continuing to dump metal into the ground.

·         Be proactive in trying to find a taker for our used scenery before strike.

o To be fair, I've tried this before without much luck. But I will keep trying!

Do you have any resolutions for your organization? Let us know in the comments!

- Anthony Runfola, Childsplay

Does Recycling Require Additional Money, Time and Commitment?

Recycling our scenery required more steps at strike than we had been used to in the past. Since we only rent our performance space while our show is running, we could not recycle on site.

In the past, when we would strike our shows, we would have a 40-yard dumpster delivered to the theatre’s loading dock. The set would come off stage, have its reusable hardware removed and then go right into the dumpster.

[Photo1 – You can see that some wood, residue from adhesive, paint and fasteners remain on and in the steel. This is not a problem for the recycling company – as long as you find the right recycler.]

In order to recycle, we had to take a few more steps and spend a little more money.

We had to transport our scenery back to our scene shop (about 10 miles away from the theatre.) Because everything has to be out on our last performance day, we had to rent two 24 foot trucks (we usually only need one.) The set had to be repacked into the trucks.

Upon arrival at the shop, we had to call another overhire crew in to unload the trucks. Next, we took two days to strip the wood from the steel frames and remove any reusable hardware. Once the wood and steel were in separate piles, we had to cut down some pieces of steel so that we could get it all into the dumpster.

The recycling company delivered the dumpster and a few hours later the steel was ready on its way to be recycled.

Overall, the recycling process added an additional two days to our strike. But a funny thing happened on the way to greening up our strike process…

Demand for steel (A Weak Outlook for Steel Makers) has been falling throughout the world over the past several months. When the recycler did not return as promised for the wood, we called. And we called again. And again. And once more after that. Finally, when we reached a person and asked why they hadn’t returned the truth came out – their company did not feel that it was worth their time to work with us. We didn’t generate enough steel for them.

Undeterred, we found another company, Renovated Metals who was more than happy to work with us. And in fact, they even hauled away some odds and ends (including an old storage container) that we needed to get rid of in order to re-arrange our back yard to allow us to have trash, steel-only, and wood-only roll off dumpsters.

However, Renovated Metals, as their name implies, only deals in scrap metal. Without anyone willing to take the scrap wood from the set, we were forced to throw it into the landfill.

[Photo2 – Childsplay’s John Emery and Matt Brown dismantle scenery for recycling.]

We will continue to look for a regional recycler for our scrap wood. However, it has become clear that, no matter how we approach it, it will be more expensive to recycle than to just dump our sets. Recycling will therefore require a commitment from the entire company, not just the production department. We will need the support of management, fundraising, and board members to generate the additional funds for recycling services. We will also need to look for ideas about educating our audiences and potential donors about the importance of sustainable stagecraft…possibly adding a “green” service fee to tickets or setting up a special fund as an add-on to our annual appeal. We are eager to hear ideas from the field: has anyone been able to generate consistent support (not just a grant here or there) for sustainability efforts?

--Anthony Runfola & Jenny Millinger, Childsplay

News from Childsplay’s Third Sustainable Stagecraft Summit

At our third Sustainable Stagecraft Summit, the participating organizations gathered to review our first two meetings and discuss what can be done to begin to fill the gaps between our desired sustainability and the resources that are available to us now.

Overwhelmingly, the theatres agreed that improving communication during the design process can improve the sustainability of our scenery and the personnel who build it. Working through Midsummer illustrated the great benefit of involving the technical director from the start of the process. However, it will require an understanding on both the designer/director and TD of why they are all in a room together. Some artists may resist the presence of production person so early in the process, while some TD’s might feel like they are there to squash ideas before they’ve had the chance to fully evolve. The real benefit lies in the TD understanding the design on a much deeper level, which could inform the decision making process once the scenic design gets down to “value engineering.” For directors and designers, the TD’s presence early the in process could help to focus ideas on what’s possible given the theatre’s production time line and budget.

It was agreed that any thoughts of sustainability go out the window as opening night draws near. How could the energy that goes into these final weeks be re-directed to the front end of the process? Would it help keep your design process consistently on time? Would this yield a more productive working environment during technical rehearsals?

It was noted that production timelines are often determined by the needs of the box office. It’s difficult to change one process without looking at all processes necessary to produce theatre.

The idea of a centralized depot or co-op (as our colleagues in Austin are creating [Salavge Vanguard]) came up several times. The question of the financial feasibility of such an organization came up each time. Operations, fee structures, and space were ongoing concerns. Because of the disparate operating budgets of area theatres it’s likely such an operation would be highly attractive to the smaller companies, while the larger organizations would get less out of participating.

What gaps should we focus on now?

Materials – the thought that spurred this project: let’s stop using trees on stage. We have discovered that several potential alternatives (Kirei Wheatboard, PlyVeneer) are being developed, but as of yet, we have not found a product that meets most of the needs of scenic construction. We’re confident we will find the right manufacturer who will be interested in helping us realize our goal.

Funding – there’s no doubt that using a sustainable plywood alternative will be more expensive. We need to find ways to convince our funders that sustainability is important. In Childsplay’s case, the irony of a children’s theatre with a mission of “imagination and wonder” that is mortgaging children’s futures through unsustainable practices was not lost on the group. We need to tie our requests for support to causes, “asking for the right thing, the right way”.

Conciseness raising – as we learned at the first summit, recycling our scenery was a much more achievable goal than we had been led to believe in the past. The Think It grant allowed us to spend the time to find “the right person.” In our next blog post, we’ll be taking you though the process of the first two sets to have been recycled in Childsplay’s 33 –year history.

-- Jenny Millinger & Anthony Runfola, Childsplay

Good, Cheap, Fast….and Sustainable: Can We Pick Three? (See the pictures! Watch the video!)

How sustainable is our design process? This was one of the questions we set out to explore in Childsplay's second Sustainable Stage Craft Summit.

At our first summit in February, we examined the materials sourcing and waste stream of our theatres. Participants agreed that as the first curtain time draws nearer any thoughts of sustainability go out the window…whether it is materials choice, time, or money. To put it another way…the paradigm of “good, cheap, fast: pick two” becomes just “fast.”

We focused our second meeting on the how and why of the design process: are there new ways to inspire creativity? What impact does the structure of the design process have on the final product?

“To show our simple skill, that is the true beginning of our end.”

We started off the day talking about what works and what doesn’t in our current processes.

An important part of the process was the back and forth of ideas between the creative team and production staff. It was suggested that if the director and designer “don’t click, it can lead to disaster.”

Starting with big ideas and narrowing down to fit the constraints was the known process in the room. Yet we wondered, has anyone ever tried to start small and grow to fit the available resources?

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

Everyone agreed that the way we have to design our production schedules leave little to no room for the realities of life or even the possibility of making a mistake. Couple that with a lack of time for research and development of techniques and materials and we begin to get an idea why we often stick with what we know.

(Photo 1, above) Childsplay production manager Anthony Runfola shares his team’s design of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

It was also noted that it is unfortunate that the people who collaborate the most on the show – the actors – are the last group brought into the process.

Continuing to work with students from Arizona State University’s Global Institute of Sustainability, an activity was created that would simulate the design and production of scenery for A Midsummer Night’s Dream from the first design meeting through to strike – all in about an hour and a half. The attendees were split into two groups: Team Puck and Team Theseus. While each group included artistic directors, directors, scenic designers, technical directors and production managers, everyone switched roles throughout the process in order to get a feel for each other’s positions. From the outset, design parameters were set – the teams were given a budget and a theatre in which to perform. Sustainability was given to one group specifically as a criterion, while the other group had to deal with a surprise budget-slashing in the midst of their process.

(Photo 2, above) Arizona State University professor Rachel Bowditch and Actors Theatre production manager Erica Black take us through their team’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

As could be imagined, there was resistance at first.

But, once the groups dove into the play and the ideas started to flow, everyone engaged.

The exercise gave everyone a chance to take the time to think objectively about their design processes and think about where possible changes could be made. Most significantly, when looking through the lens of sustainability, everyone found that they made difference choices about the design even before the pencil touched the paper.

Making choices earlier clearly emerged as a key to sustainability, yet we also concluded that it would be difficult to change the design process without changing processes throughout an organization. Many factors affect the production calendar (marketing, audience willingness, money, performance space, etc.) that are beyond the control of the designers and production team. Nonetheless, we did identify several opportunities to effect change. It was suggested that our decision trees should include the impact of our artistic choices on the sustainability of our staff. Since both teams had a technical director on them, it was also recognized that having that person engaged more throughout the process made it much smoother. Confidence in feasibility of achieving the design was much higher, and it gave the TD insight into the “whys” of the design.

While our second summit did not end with transformative actions that the participants could take, we do hope that we took the first step in adding adding “sustainability” into the good, cheap and fast paradigm.

Watch the second Sustainable Stage Craft Summit here:

Childsplay - Sustainable Stagecraft Summit #2 from Anthony Runfola on Vimeo.

--Jenny Millinger & Anthony Runfola, Childsplay

Childsplay Hosts Sustainable Stagecraft Summit

Read about Childsplay’s planning of summits to find solutions to Sustainable Stagecraft, and take part in their survey this month…

Our search for practical, affordable solutions to sustainable stagecraft is being led by a fantastic team of graduate students from Arizona State University’s Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS). We have been meeting weekly to develop a shared vocabulary and a framework for conversations about the constraints – cost, availability, quick turnarounds, institutional priorities, etc. – that govern purchasing decisions in our shops.

With the help of the GIOS team, we are busy preparing for our first of three Sustainable Stagecraft Summits. The February convening will focus on the sourcing and recycling of materials used in our shops. Childsplay will bring together theatre professionals, manufacturers and recyclers to explore the following topics: where are we currently purchasing our materials and what is their origin (source); what sustainable materials currently exist in the marketplace that are directly comparable to our current materials and how might we reduce costs through bulk purchasing; are there other existing sustainable (and affordable!) products that could be adapted to theatrical applications; and how could we alter our preparation of materials to make them easier to recycle. We will build upon the excellent work of Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company (see their entries on the A-ha! Blog) and the Rainforest Relief Fund’s Safe Sets Campaign in providing a framework for materials discussions. We will also hope to have a practical application session during the summit, spending part of the day in a shop environment experimenting with samples of substitute products.

We need your help, too. In the next few days, Childsplay will survey the field to better understand the quantity of materials used in theatrical scenic construction, the potential buying power of the industry, and any current sustainable purchasing and recycling activities at individual theatres. Thanks for your help – we will share the results in our next blog!

Here is the link to the survey: Childsplay Sustainable Stagecraft Survey


--Jenny Millinger, Director of Strategic Initiatives & Anthony Runfola, Production Manager, Childsplay

Childsplay’s Sustainable Stagecraft Initiative

Today, Jenny Millinger and Anthony Runfola of Childsplay give us an update of their project so far…

Childsplay defines itself as an ensemble that creates strikingly original theatre (theatre that is curious, fresh, fearless, and empowering) and engages its community in exploring the intersections between artistry and learning. The impetus for this project came out of both the company’s longstanding frustration over the waste created in theatrical productions and the potential for treating sustainable design as an artistry/learning intersection for our audiences and ourselves. We also needed to walk the talk – after 32 years of producing plays that encourage social responsibility, the staff felt strongly that its stagecraft should embrace environmental stewardship.

This initiative is all about finding practical, realizable, and cost-effective solutions to making our design and production process more environmentally friendly. We want to explore solutions from a variety of perspectives: materials choices, design choices, and potential industry-wide practices. For example, rarely are products developed specifically for use in stagecraft – we usually adapt products made for other industries to meet our needs. We want to explore whether we as an industry have the buying power to encourage manufacturers to create products that meet our needs and are environmentally sensitive. A great example is sheet good lumber such as plywood. Through this initiative, we will begin looking for alternatives (particularly non-wood alternatives) that maintain the best properties of plywood (e.g. can be cut, can absorb paint, etc.) and that come from a renewable resource. We also know that a significant part of the solution lies in the stage design itself. We plan to bring together a group of designers to discuss alternative approaches to materials, geometric constraints, and other conceptual choices that could lead to a more sustainable product. Finally, we recognize that we are not alone in creating significant waste from our productions. We will look for potential partnerships across the performing arts to develop cradle-to-cradle solutions for production waste. Ideas include a central location for used scenery, props and costume pieces to be either re-dressed for other productions or disassembled for reuse/recycling.

We look forward to hearing from the industry of similar efforts and ideas that have either succeeded or successfully failed in your theatres. Please view this as an invitation to post your comments about your own sustainable stagecraft efforts – whether you are doing it or thinking it!!

--Jenny Millinger and Anthony Runfola, Childsplay

A-ha!: Refreshing the Process

As the new year is still fresh, we thought it would be a good time to RE-refresh minds on the program and introduce it to those of you who are newcomers to this blog. The MetLife/TCG Ah-ha! Program: Think It, Do It was created to encourage and foster creative thinking and action among TCG member theatres. A-ha! has two components: Think It grants (up to $25,000) give theatre professionals the time and space for research and development, and Do It grants (up to $50,000) support the implementation and testing of new ideas. Over 180 TCG Member Theatres submitted proposals for the second round of the program, and five of them received grants.

TCG is proud and delighted to present the second round of A-ha! recipients with a brief summary of their exciting projects. In addition, Jenny Millinger and Anthony Runfola of Childsplay give us an update of their project so far…

Visit us again to read more from this group of recipients while they share their process with the field as their projects move from thoughts to actions.

Think It!
Book-It Repertory Theatre will investigate the feasibility of a long-term partnership between Book-It and other non-profits to create a literacy-based theatre arts complex that nourishes their entire community.

Childsplay will convene experts from theatre design, manufacturing, recycling and sustainability to explore in depth strategies for implementing green initiatives (renew/reuse/recycle) in stagecraft.

East West Players proposes to develop an artist talent agency and diversity advocacy prototype, leveraging their theatre as a resource for performing opportunities and artistic career development and establish them as a resource for Asian Pacific American talent.

Salvage Vanguard Theater will undertake an exploratory process to develop and test a business plan for a production element co-op (scenic, lighting, costume) for small to mid-size companies in the Austin, Texas theater community.

Do It!
Clubbed Thumb seeks to partner with a larger theater to co-curate an upcoming production. Both partners will mutually choose, staff and cast a play to be produced at Clubbed Thumb’s June festival and then in a longer run at the larger theater.

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Over the coming months, this blog will be updated with images, text, video, quotes – anything we can think of that might help the field learn from these projects. We want to share what’s working and what isn’t working.

Feel free to comment, email or interact with us and the recipients in any way you can think of! This blog is for you, the field!