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

What is the Next Link in the Sustainability Network?

What is the next step after the Co-op? Where do resources go after the Austin Scenic Co-op [Collaboration between Salvage Vanguard and Rude Mechs] can no longer use them? I found inspiration this week from two community service volunteers that were helping me to organize the shed where we house the Austin Scenic Co-op stock. Community service volunteers are court appointed by the city of Austin to complete a certain number of hours with a local non-profit.

This week I worked with two young men to get rid of some of our stock that had not been used since it was donated. Most of these were odd shaped platforms that are very show specific and therefore not used readily by many people. We were hauling these out to the dumpster making way for a new batch of standard 4x8 platforms --by far our most popular item to loan out. To me these old platforms --some of which have not been touched by anyone for three years--were just trash, but the guys that were helping me out asked if they could use some of the lumber. They informed me that they had friends that would break down things like what I was throwing away. If they got the things for free they could turn just enough profit to make it worth their while.

This reminded me of an essay I read recently, "Ecology and Community" by physicist and systems theorist Fritjof Capra. In it he argues that communities should turn to ecosystems to learn how to be sustainable. Capra insists that lessons learned from ecosystems aren’t mere suggestions, but are laws for how communities must organize themselves. The laws of sustainability are "just as stringent as the laws of physics . . . If you go up to a high cliff and step off it, disregarding the laws of gravity, you will surely die. If we live in a community, disregarding the laws of sustainability as a community, we will just as surely die in the long run."

Capra identifies five laws of sustainability: interdependence, recycling, partnership, flexibility, and diversity. I think the most fascinating argument he makes in the article is when he writes, "you can define an ecosystem as a community where there is no waste."

In establishing the Austin Scenic Co-op we have been very concerned with getting donations--making sure people know about us so that they don't throw away set pieces that others could use. We have been working to establish networks to recycle theatre companies' sets and we still have a lot of work to do in this regard. Now that our stock is starting to grow we are encountering a new problem--one that I did not foresee. What is the next step in the network? What do we do with those things that aren't useful anymore to theatre companies?

Now that we have to be more selective about what we can accept and are starting to have to cull some of our less useful stock we need to establish another link in the network. Another level of recycling. I am excited about establishing another partnership one that is interested in using lumber that we cannot. And getting closer to our goal of zero waste.

--Thomas Graves, Austin Scenic Co-Op & Rude Mechs

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