August 2004

Dear Colleague,

EARTH MATTERS ON STAGE: ECODRAMA PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL is the first national theatre festival concerned with ecological issues, including plays about environmental justice, ecological sense of community, and sense of place. The EMOS Festival is a great example of interdisciplinary work linking the Humanities with the Sciences. Please help us spread the word to interested students and faculty.

The EMOS Festival takes place at Humboldt State University September 24 through October 2, 2004. I hope that you and some of your students will attend. I have attached our Brochure as a PDF File for printing/posting/distribution, as well as Resources for Educators that includes “What Is Ecodrama?” and Synopses of Festival plays with Sample Discussion Questions which you can use in developing assignments around the Festival.

You will find other helpful information at our website: www.humboldt.edu/emos. The website gives up-to-date Festival Schedule, travel information, links to useful articles, synopsis and biographies of winning playwrights, and other information that will help you make attending the Festival enjoyable and educational.

Please feel free to contact me if I can assist you in planning your visit to Humboldt County and the EMOS Festival.

Best wishes for a successful autumn term,

Dr. Theresa J. May, Associate Artistic Director

Earth Matters On Stage ~ Ecodrama Playwrights Festival

Theatre Film and Dance

Humboldt State University

/ website: www.humboldt.edu/emos

Information for Educators

Ecodrama Playwrights Festival 2004

1) What is Ecodrama?

Ecodrama is an emerging genre of theatre that includes plays about our relationship with the natural world, plays about environmental justice, plays that personify “nature”, plays that enter into the public debate about environmental problems or policy, and plays with a strong “sense of place.” The purpose of this Festival is to explore and broaden the scope of ecodrama by calling for plays that may not be highly political on the surface, but speak to a deeper ecological connection with the world around us. See, or “Eco-Theatre USA: The Grassroots Is Greener” by Downing Cless, “The Greening of Theatre: Taking Ecocriticism from Page to Stage,” by Theresa May, under Related Articles at www.humboldt.edu/emos.

2) Schedule & Festival Info (See website for up-to-date info):

Dates: September 24 – October 2, 2004

Ecodrama Playwrights Festival 2004 Schedule: (synopses below)

· Award Ceremony with Dr. Rollin Richmond & winning playwrights: Friday, Sept. 24, 6:30 pm Gist Hall Theatre

Odin’s Horse by Robert Koon, Fri./Sat., Sept. 24, 25, 8 pm Gist Hall Theatre
Girl Science by Larry Lobell, Fri./Sat., Oct. 1, 2, 8 pm Gist Hall Theatre
Ecodrama Panel Discussion Saturday, Sept. 25, 5-7 pm Gist Hall Theatre
Salmon Is Everything, by the Klamath Theatre Project, Sunday, Sept. 26, 5pm Dell’Arte’s Carlo Theatre, Blue Lake
Basketmaker, by David Baughan, Wed.,Sept. 29, 8 pm Gist Hall Theatre

Other Eco-Plays in the Community:

In the Shadow of Giants by Matthew Graham Smith, Sept. 24, 25, 26, 8pm Dell’Arte’s Carlo Theatre, Blue Lake (Tickets: 668-5653 x20).
Bindlestiff’s Dance Hall by Sue Bigelow-Marsh, Sept. 24, 25, 30, Oct. 1, 2, 8pm, Sept. 26, 2pm, Redwood Curtain Theatre, Eureka (Tickets: 443-7688

3) Synopsis of Plays and Sample Discussion Questions:

ODIN'S HORSE by Robert Koon - WINNER 2004
Arman, a writer adrift in the comforts of sudden and unexpected success, struggles to orient himself in his newly altered circumstances. While a new romantic relationship leads him into a rarified social circle, in the redwood forest he encounters a treesitter whose commitment causes him to consider the bargains we all make to get the things we want. In Nordic mythology, Odin hung from the tree of life (whose name, Yggdrasil, roughly translates as "Odin's Horse") so that, suspended between heaven and earth, he might learn the secret of the runes. Poised between the two poles of his own intractable problem, Arman reaches for the thing outside himself, the commitment that will set his life in motion once again.

Sample Essay/Discussion Questions: Both ODIN’S HORSE and SHADOW OF GIANTS deal with the highly politicized northwest timber issue. Compare and contrast the treatment of that debate in both plays. How does each play perpetuate stereotypes of tree-sitters, loggers, timber barons, women, or Nature, AND/OR how does it work “against the grain” of those cultural constructions? How did you feel after each play, why?

GIRL SCIENCE by Larry Loebell - 1st Runner Up
Dr. Johanna Vernon, an eminent limnologist (water biologist), is interviewed for a biography by her grand niece, Lois Allen, an up-and-coming historian.
Lois views her great aunt as one of the "forgotten pioneers of science". As a reluctant participant at first, and then more willingly, Johanna tells Lois stories from her seemingly charmed girlhood. But was it? As Lois's researches Johanna's past, she uncovers a startling tragedy which, when revealed, changes both women's lives.

Sample Essay/Discussion Questions: In the early 20^th century, science was “man’s domain”, and today women scientists may feel the fallout of this conceptual and economic inequity. How does this play explore the way women have sometimes navigated a “man’s world” in order to make a difference? Do women bring something unique to scientific inquiry? How does this play complicate the arenas of personal, political and professional? Additional useful reading: The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution by Carolyn Merchant (Introduction).

THE BASKETMAKER by David M. Baughan - Honorable Mention
In 1725, Molly Sekatau, an itinerant Abenaki basketmaker, arrives to ply her wares at the New Hampshire frontier homestead of Elizabeth Sayers, a widow, and her teenage daughter, Rachel. Molly remains to assist Rachel with the autumn harvest and provide healing care to the injured mother. Molly discovers the daughter's intuitive gifts and encourages them, much to the displeasure of Elizabeth. A struggle for Rachel's soul ensues with dire consequences that lead to a revisioning of one of the most haunting chapters in American history.

Sample Essay/Discussion Questions: How does this play construct the past in order to illuminate contemporary issues? Give examples of how this play perpetuate stereotypes of women or Indians, AND/OR how it works “against the grain” of those historic constructions?

SALMON IS EVERYTHING by The Klamath Theatre Project

In 2002 33,000 salmon died on the lower Klamath River. Indian fishing communities were emotionally, spiritually and economically devastated. Many believe farmers in the upper Klamath valley using too much water for irrigation caused the fish kill. The tragedy and surrounding issues are explosive in this community-based play drawn from interviews with lower Klamath Tribal members, community members, and upper Klamath farmers, ranchers and government agency folk.

Sample Essay/Discussion Questions: How does this play explore issues of environmental justice here in Humboldt County? How does SALMON IS EVERYTHING and TRUE NATURE OF ALL BEING illuminate the intersection of social justice issues (race, ethnicity, class) with environmental problems? What are the underlying assumptions about the land (including rivers) that threaten both Tribal people and, ultimately, farmers in the upper Klamath? How do cultural norms effect the characters’ ability to fight or cope with their situation? [Partner with SALMON IS EVERYTHING.] How did you feel after the play, why?

Additional useful reading: Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture (Introduction).

BINDLESTIFF'S DANCE HALL, by Sue Bigelow Marsh tells the story of one man's struggle to maintain his dignity and hope in the often hopeless world of the migrant farm workers as they tried to shape and survive in an environment far from their control.

Sample Essay/Discussion Questions: What is the role of personal responsibility when the government itself has promoted unsustainable land-use programs. Look at the role of the “Farmer” in both SALMON IS EVERYTHING and BINDELESTIFF DANCE HALL, reflecting on how we are accountable to the land. Useful reading: Aldo Leopold, Sand Country Almanac (last chapter) or Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture (Introduction).

SHADOW OF GIANTS by Matthew Graham Smith is a play about a struggle over one redwood tree. A struggle with international ramifications. A woman from New Jersey comes to Humboldt County to help protest the cutting of old growth and gets herself in a bit deeper (and higher) than she expected. The play attempts to personify “nature” and the tree—a strategy employed by ecodramatists wanting to “give voice to the land.”