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Miami Herald
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
How theater can teach kids about climate change
NEW YORK - Willow is a city kid who loves her neighborhood's tiny "pocket" park, especially the giant tree, Oakie, whose branches stretch across it. But she has a problem: The park is slated for redevelopment. And her friends and fellow park visitors - Rio, Kai, Ashe and Frankie - all have different ideas for what the park should become. Willow wants it restored to a nature-filled haven, while Rio hopes for a splash pad, Ashe a basketball court, Kai a vegetable garden and Frankie a quiet spot for accessing free Wi-Fi. In a theater near Times Square one Sunday earlier this year, my 4-year-old and I watched the young people argue, strategize and reflect, with help from a friendly parakeet who nudges them to work together to save the park. They were characters in "The Pocket Park Kids," a play for children that uses the idea of restoring a city park in disrepair as an allegory for reversing environmental degradation. The play got me thinking about how the arts, and theater in particular, can introduce kids as young as preschool to the climate crisis and ways to alleviate it. Anika Larsen, an actress and the play's co-creator, told me she sees theater as particularly effective at helping people process tough topics without dwelling in despair. "Artists have always been at the forefront of every movement because we're able to talk about things in ways that are uplifting and activating and inspiring, as opposed to demoralizing and begetting feelings of helplessness and hopelessness," she said. Of climate change, she added, "None of us really want to hear about it. It feels too overwhelming, it feels too scary." Related: Want to read more about how climate change is shaping education? Subscribe to our free newsletter. Larsen, who was nominated for a Tony for her role in "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical," said she was inspired to develop a climate-themed play after reading "yet another terrifying article about the climate crisis" and moving through feelings of panic and anger. A friend, Andrea Varga, a professor and sustainability faculty fellow at the State University of New York at New Paltz, told her she could have the biggest impact if she looked locally - which in Larsen's case was Broadway. Varga also introduced her to the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, which became the frame for Larsen's play. Each character and their vision for the park represents a goal or several (Kai, who worries about his grandfather's health and wants nutritious food, represents zero hunger, while Rio, a proud Pisces, represents water and sanitation, as well as life below water). "As a framework for understanding the problems of the world, I think it is elegant," said Larsen of the global goals. "It's also a really helpful jumping-off point for taking action, because you identify what are the global goals that matter to you and how you can act within those goals." But the play itself does not mention them. "I didn't want it to be just overt teaching. I wanted it to be an entertaining and well-structured play," said Larsen. Instead, the actors break character at the end of the production and engage the audience in a discussion about sustainability. Kids in the audience raised their hands and chimed in about ideas for helping save the planet, including composting and using the subway. Roughly 800 public school students attended the play through a partnership between New York City schools and the New York City Children's Theater, which put on the Madden, a professor of elementary science education at The College of New Jersey, said that educators can experiment with ways to engage the youngest students in climate action. "While there are certainly challenges - teachers' time and resources are always stretched - integrating theater, even in small ways, can support climate education," she told me in an email. Madden said she's seen educators use short plays or skits as conversation starters around climate issues, and some schools partner with artists and theaters to supplement their curricula. Related: 'Why is the sky fuzzy?': Climate change lessons need to start as early as preschool Larsen infused her production with other sustainability lessons too. A board member of the Broadway Green Alliance, which promotes environmentally friendly practices in theater productions, she relied on reused materials for sets, props, puppets and more - "as much Broadway trash as we could," she said. Newspapers thrown onto the stage during the performance were salvaged from "Back to the Future," cardboard used on the set and for props was from "Hadestown," and - spoiler alert - the flowers that help beautify and restore the park were fashioned origami-style from discarded Playbills. "Once you think of it not as a constraint but as sort of a game," finding creative ways to reuse materials becomes fun, said Larsen. Ian Garrett, the production's lighting director who leads the nonprofit Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts, initiated a carbon emissions audit of the show. And this spring, "The Pocket Park Kids" offset its emissions by a giveaway of more than 100 trees in New York City. Now, Larsen is hoping to bring the play to other communities in different parts of the country and world. She's also thinking about possibilities for telling the story in other media - a book, TV, perhaps a movie. "I think the key to solving the climate crisis is feeling good while we do it, and I do feel there can be joy in being problem solvers and change-makers," she said. Or, as the parakeet in the play puts it, "Action is the antidote to despair." The play, and more specifically the parakeet puppets, made an impression in my household. A few weeks after seeing the performance, my daughter said to me unprompted: "I really liked that puppet show." Asked about what she learned from it, she said, "You need to keep the flowers healthy" and "the trees with no garbage." Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at preston@ This story about climate change and theater was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter on climate and education. The post How theater can teach kids about climate change appeared first on The Hechinger Report.
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Peek behind the scenes of Clueless the Musical with lead Emma Flynn
Readers are being given the chance to take a look behind the curtain and even below the stage of Clueless the Musical at the Trafalgar Theatre. The Standard is taking viewers on a video tour behind the scenes with Emma Flynn, who plays the lead role of Cher Horowitz. She has previously had parts in Little Shop of Horrors and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. The tour starts off on stage with Flynn walking you through some of her favourite props and pieces from Cher's faux bedroom. The exploration doesn't stop there as it visits the depths of the Trafalgar Theatre, where Flynn has not yet been, and goes all the way up to her dressing room on the fifth floor. But, fortunately for viewers, they won't need to climb those steep flights. See also: The Standard launches new video series taking viewers behind the scenes of West End shows 'By the end of this year, my glutes are going to be rock hard!' joked Flynn as she climbs higher and higher through the theatre. Some fascinating details from the stage show that you can expect to see include Cher's costumes, like the red outfit that refers to the original movie, and the stunning Calvin Klein dress she wore on her date with Christian. Plus, get the inside scoop on how Flynn is fitted for wigs and how quick-change looks can still include hairstyling updates. There is even a wig for a character only portrayed as a portrait, as an extra peek behind the theatre magic that goes into creating a play for the West End. Clueless the Musical is directed by Rachel Kavanaugh and was written by Amy Heckerling, who wrote and directed the original Nineties chick-flick. Tickets are available for shows until September 27 via Future videos diving into the backstage areas of London theatre shows will explore the magical world of My Neighbour Totoro at the Gillian Lynne Theatre. The production is based on Hayao Miyazaki's 1988 Studio Ghibli film and was adapted by Tom Morton-Smith, who wrote the 2015 play Oppenheimer, and directed by Phelim McDermott. Plus, catch up on the first from the series, Stranger Things: The First Shadow here.
New York Times
20-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Buena Vista Social Club' Brings the Thrill of Music Making to Broadway
The spirit of the musical 'Buena Vista Social Club' is evident in its opening scene. Audience members have barely settled into their seats before a group of onstage musicians strikes up the number 'El Carretero,' with the rest of the cast gathered around and watching. Some are leaning in from their chairs, others get up and dance on the side. The music is center stage, and we immediately understand its power as a communal experience that binds people. Therein lies the production's greatest achievement. For a place where music so often plays a crucial role, Broadway hardly ever highlights the thrill of music making itself. Oh, there have been shows that have effectively pulled the curtain on the process — David Adjmi's play 'Stereophonic' takes place inside recording studios, and the most effective scenes in 'Beautiful: The Carole King Musical' are set in one as well. But the interconnections between musicians, songs and a society have rarely been evoked as vividly, and as lovingly, as they are in 'Buena Vista Social Club,' which opened on Wednesday at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater. (This improved version follows the show's Off Broadway run at Atlantic Theater Company, which premiered in December 2023.) As its title indicates, this production, directed by Saheem Ali, is inspired by the 1997 hit album 'Buena Vista Social Club,' on which veterans of the Havana scene performed beloved sons, danzones and boleros from the traditional Cuban repertoire. Many of those songs and others are in the musical (a booklet in the Playbill introduces each one, with illustrations by the flutist Hery Paz), along with most of those musicians and singers. Or at least versions of them are. Tellingly, the book by Marco Ramirez ('The Royale') identifies the characters by their first names only, as if to underline that this is more of an evocative flight of fancy than a biomusical — Ramirez makes the most of musical theater's notoriously loose relationship with facts. The action travels back and forth between 1956, in the tense time leading up to the toppling of the autocratic Batista regime, and 1996, when the young producer Juan de Marcos (Justin Cunningham) assembles a backing band for the older singers he's brought into the studio. (The British executive producer Nick Gold and the American guitarist and producer Ry Cooder played important parts in the 'Buena Vista Social Club' album and the Wim Wenders documentary that followed, but the musical doesn't mention them. Instead it focuses on de Marcos's role in putting together the band and singers.) The show toggles between 1996 and 1956, where the young performers Compay (Da'von T. Moody), Omara (Isa Antonetti) and Ibrahim (Wesley Wray) bond over their love of traditional Cuban music. Credit... Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Chicago Tribune
08-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: In ‘Beautiful' at Drury Lane, Carole King's story begins with her as a 16-year-old songwriter
Midway through 'Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,' the chart-topping composer responds to a colleague's suggestion that she perform in public with a modest question: 'I'm just a normal person; who wants to hear a normal person sing?' He replies, 'Other normal people.' Their exchange sums up the whole vibe of this biographical jukebox musical about a middle-class young woman from Brooklyn making her way in show business and finding her own voice after years of writing hit songs for other artists. As played by Samantha Gershman in her Drury Lane Theatre debut, King is the quintessential girl next door: sweet, earnest and family-oriented. And, when she sings, mesmerizing. Unfortunately, the musical struggles to overcome one of the typical challenges for this type of show: It features plenty of nostalgic tunes of the era — in this case, pop music and rock 'n' roll of the late 1950s through early '70s — but the plot isn't all that compelling. The major conflicts stem from King's turbulent first marriage and the difficulties of being a working mother in the music industry. It's a warm story of personal resilience and growth, but the dramatic tension doesn't hold up over the course of two and a half hours. Not that this shortcoming has hampered the success of the musical, which has a book by Douglas McGrath and music and lyrics by Gerry Goffin, Carole King, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. 'Beautiful' ran on Broadway for nearly six years, transferred to London's West End and has toured the U.S. twice. More recently, it's made the rounds of Chicago's regional theaters: the Marriott in 2023, Paramount in 2024, and now Drury Lane in a production directed by Jane Lanier with choreography by Gerry McIntyre and music direction by Carolyn Brady. The show begins with 16-year-old Carole Klein, soon to be known as Carole King, getting her first break by selling an original song at the Brill Building in Manhattan, the center of publishing and songwriting for the pop music industry at the time. A precocious student who graduated from high school two years early, she meets her future lyricist and husband, Gerry Goffin (Alex Benoit) as a freshman at Queen's College. By age 17, Carole is married, expecting their first child and writing her way to the top of the Billboard charts with Gerry. With its focus on King's early career, the show offers an inside look at how the music industry operated in this era, when fewer performers wrote their own music but rather relied on songwriting teams such as King and Goffin — and the couple's friends and rivals, Barry Mann (Andrew MacNaughton) and Cynthia Weil (Alexandra Palkovic). Ensemble members portray some of the artists they wrote for, including the Drifters (Averis Anderson, Makenzy Jenkins, Austin Nelson Jr. and Michael Turrentine), the Righteous Brothers (Maxwell J. DeTonge and Ian Geers), the Shirelles (Lydia Burke, Raeven Carroll, Alanna Lovely and Chamaya Moody) and Little Eva (Moody). Popular tunes such as 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow,' 'On Broadway' and 'The Locomotion' are given lively renditions, providing snapshots of their journeys from the writing studio to full-fledged hit. King and Weil make familiar foils in their contrasting approaches to work and family life. Both are ambitious, competitive artists, but King dreams of raising children in the suburbs while Weil resists the institution of marriage despite her budding relationship with Mann. While King comes across as a bit buttoned-up, and certainly not a fiery second-wave feminist, she asserts her autonomy in her own time and way. On opening night, the audience cheered during the scene when she finally draws a firm line with her unfaithful husband. Gershman's performance is certainly worth seeing if you're a fan of King's music. She captures King's unembellished tone and homey Brooklyn twang with a relaxed stage presence that makes her seem like someone you could get coffee with. And if you're patient, you'll hear '(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman' and 'I Feel the Earth Move' — so don't leave before curtain call is over. Emily McClanathan is a freelance critic. When: Through March 23 Where: Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace
