SOL – A CLIMATE CHANGE MUSICAL
ORIGINAL DATE OF PUBLICATION: July 8, 2011Spreading the message through music and theatre.
We need to come off the carbon, but we can’t. We’re locked into a cycle of production and consumption that just seems too set in it’s ways to change direction.
It’s not for want of information or know-how. It’s rather our self-belief and the will to act for our collective future which needs to be re-kindled. We need to become emotionally engaged with new stories about ourselves and our planet if we’re going to have any joy in adapting our behaviours to the new situation we find ourselves in.
Sol – a climate-change musical, is one such story. Told to curious children in a post-carbon world, it’s a fabulous action-packed history of the present, humorously peppered with satirical allusions and anachronisms. And it presents us with two possible outcomes in one show – outcomes determined by the audience. We can feel the awful tragedy of arriving, finally, at an irreversible ecological breakdown. But we can also, through a brilliant dramatic device, experience the subsequent empowerment of choosing to act to bring a different outcome – one in which we reclaim the qualities of social solidarity, hope and courage.
Handled with compassion and wit, the truth which seems so hard to hear – that we must let go of our sureties and step with creative confidence into an unknown, challenging future – can be turned into something we want to hear and even sing along with.
The writing team are Theo Simon, Shannon Smy and Rich Whistance, all from the popular campaigning British band Seize The Day. They intend to get the musical adopted for mainstream theatre production and into schools musical productions.
