STAGES – Sustainable Theatre Alliance for a Green Environmental Shift is a never-before-seen theatre experiment to revolutionize how the cultural sector interacts with the concept of sustainability.
Between 2022 and 2025, 14 influential theatre organizations tour urgent new performances on the climate crisis around Europe and even as far as Taiwan. What makes STAGES unique is that no people or items move as part of the tour.
Each partner also uses lessons from Doughnut Economics to undergo a new auto-analysis process to identify necessary changes in areas such as building design, audience travel and work-life balance; and test a series of participatory events and workshops, bringing scientists and local audiences into the creative process.
The STAGES partners commit to re-thinking touring processes by re-staging the two performances created by Katie Mitchell and Jérôme Bel for Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, using local casts, local sets, and even electricity generated on-stage. They are:
- A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction, a purposeful eco-feminist monologue by Miranda Rose Hall which reflects on our responsibilities and means of action in the face of ecological disaster, directed by Katie Mitchell
- Jérôme Bel, an auto-bio-choreo-graphy that could have been subtitled: “dancing, from AIDS to the climate crisis”, by Jérôme Bel.
An annual series of participatory Forum events and workshops brings together artists, scientists, and audiences to dream of “desirable futures”. The first Forum focused on the topic of Space and Territories and was hosted by Theatre de Liege and NTGent in November 2022.
STAGES partners have also been able to use their influence and Cross-European connections to express solidarity with Trafó, the project’s Hungarian theatre partner, through a period of immense financial difficulty. This solidarity will allow the theatre to produce the adaptation of the play Jérôme Bel, also co-produce an additional show in the second half of the project.
The full list of partners: Théâtre de Liège (Belgium) | MC93 — Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis (France) | Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb (Croatia) | The Royal Dramatic Theatre, Dramaten, Stockholm (Sweden) | Lithuanian National Drama Theatre (Lithuania) | Piccolo Teatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa (Italy) | Trafó House of Contemporary Arts (Hungary) | Teatro Nacional D. Maria II (Portugal) | NTGent (Belgium) | Maribor Slovene National Theatre- Slovensko narodno gledališče Maribor (Slovenia) | Riga Technical University – University of Latvia (Latvia) | European Theatre Convention (Germany) | Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne (Switzerland) | National Theater & Concert Hall – 國家兩廳院 (Taiwan)
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