Climate Change Theatre Action festival at LCC features series of five-minute plays

Act I: Festival casts light on climate change issues

Scientists and artists play a crucial role in helping to mitigate the effects of climate change and find a way to ensure we have a world that we can still survive in. Scientists can measure change and create solutions while artists can help change hearts and minds and create buy-in and commitment to those solutions.

Lansing Community College is maintaining its role with the upcoming global Climate Change Theatre Action festival at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 1-2 in LCC’s Black Box Theatre. It is a free festival that has been performed in the area every other year since organizer and producer Melissa Kaplan brought it to Lansing’s Robin Theatre in 2017.

The festival, called “Climate Change Theatre Action: All Good Things Must Begin,” presents two nights of short plays from different countries while a multidisciplinary group of students, staff and faculty will present poetry, art and information.

The LCC festival is part of a worldwide endeavor under the same name that takes place from Sept. 17-Dec. 23 of this year, coinciding with the U.N. Conference of the Parties climate meetings. In the biennial festival, 50 playwrights contribute five-minute plays on a theme. This year’s theme comes from a journal entry made by science fiction writer Octavia Butler in which she wrote, “all good things must begin.”

LCC’s production features five plays: Thunderbird by Jo MacDonald, an Anishinaabe playwright from Manitoba, Canada; A Hummingbird’s Ululation by Aleya Kassam, Kenya; That’s the Late Night Show by Vitor Jatobá, Brazil; Magical Fungi in Times Square by Chantal Bilodeau, Quebec, Canada/New York; The Polar Bears by Nicholas Billon, Canada; and a sixth play, Snails by Janet Colson, Detroit, formerly of Lansing.

The plays are directed by Anna Szabo, Doak Bloss and Nick Lemmer, and performed by a cast of 16 LCC theater students and one theater alum. Student poetry, curated by English professor Barbara Clauer, will be on display and the Michigan Coalition of Science on the Ballot will have an information table alongside other local environmental organizations.

Act II: Williamston Theatre opens holiday comedy

Tickets are selling fast for the return of “Murder for Two: Holiday Edition” at Williamston Theatre. Officially opening this weekend, the best seats still available are for Saturday night’s show, though as of the start of the week, there were still tickets for Friday night and the Saturday and Sunday matinees—and, of course, for the rest of the run through Dec. 23.

Directed by Michigan State University’s Rob Roznowski, the two-person show has a book and music by Joe Kinosian and book and lyrics by Kellen Blair. Williamston included the show in its season in 2017 and it is bringing back the same cast—Mark Schenfisch and Andrea Wollenberg.

Set on Christmas Eve, “Murder for Two” is a musical murder mystery where the two actors/singers/piano players perform all the roles as wannabe-detective Marcus Moscowicz is eager to solve the murder of novelist Arthur Whitney before the official detective shows up. There is a large selection of wacky guests, all suspects as the novelist frequently mocked and humiliated them in his mystery novels. The actors are even called upon to play a gang of boys ala the Baker Street Irregulars.

The show is 90 minutes long and is performed without an intermission.

Encore!

• The Children’s Ballet Theatre will present its annual version of “The Nutcracker” this weekend, directed and choreographed by CBT alumnus and now artistic director Jesse Rand Powers. Performances will be held at Lansing Eastern High School Auditorium at 7 p.m. Friday, 1 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $25 or $15 for students, seniors and veterans.

• MSU students will perform five improv comedy shows next weekend from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3. Directed by Sarah Hendrickson, the students will perform at Studio 60 Theatre. Tickets are $20, $15 for seniors and faculty and $10 for students.

• The MSU Concert Orchestra will perform a Concert of Unity featuring the Pulitzer Prize winning composer George Walker. The concert is 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 7.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Climate Change Theatre Action fest features series of 5-minute plays