THE GOD PARTICLE: Green Design Inspiration

We've been receiving inspiring photos from costume designers with phenomenal green designs in this year's Planet Connections Theatre Festivity ... here's a sneak peek with costume designer Cat Fisher of The God Particle playing in the Robert Moss as part of the Evening of One Acts.  (Catch the next performance today at 4PM!  You can find the full listing of performance dates below).

Cat has created a hat, scarf and gloves for one of the characters in The God Particle. Below, she reveals the inspiration and the technology behind her design!

Actor Amanda Johnson wearing Cat's recycled creation!

The hat, scarf, and pair of fingerless gloves, took approximately 12 hours to crochet. For the most part, single crochet, half-double, and double crochet stitches were used, with a size I/9 hook. The design is a sort of trial and error effort. The preparation of "yarn" required scissors and approximately 20 minutes per bag to cut and wind strips of plastic. The bags were each cut into one continuous strip, with the 'yarn' width varying from 3/4 - 2".

I love recycling, and over the past fifteen-ish years, crocheting from plastic bags has been a favorite activity. From costumes, toys and doll clothing (blythe, licca, and barbie), to kitschy home decor and fashion items, a wide variety of colors and weights of "disposable" plastics can be used/reused to create interesting effects. 

The God Particle, by Christina Gorman and directed by Joan Kane, is set in Geneva. Already in place was a fab set design (Starlet Jacobs) with simulated snow, wonderful snowy night lighting (Bruce A! Kraemer), rockin' ambient bar/party sounds (Ian Wehrli), a script mentioning skis, and plenty of shivering activity by the actors. When the call for eco-friendly fashion in costume design was issued by Planet Connections, I immediately pictured Izzy (Amanda Johnson), the female character, wearing eco-chic winter accessories.  How can Gavin (Jack Berenholtz) resist a gal who wears re-structured molecules so well?
 

For your amusement is a photo of my muse, licca, wearing (last seasons') plastic chic...

Thanks Cat!  You can see her work onstage in An Evening of One Acts: GALILEO, THE GOD PARTICLE & THE MATRA INDIA at The Robert Moss Theatre (Located at 440 Lafayette St. between Astor Place and 4th St. and across the street from The Public Theater. Conveniently located near the N, R, W, and 6 trains.)

SHOW TIMES & TICKETS:
Saturday, June 11th at 4:00PM
Wednesday, June 15th at 6:30PM
Sunday, June 19th at 3:30PM
Tuesday, June 21st at 8:00PM
Friday, June 24th at 6:30PM

Join Planet Connections Theatre Festivity on Facebook and Twitter.  

Follow The Greener Room on Facebook.

Trash To Facts!

The Festivity is now entering its second week of the festival, so I hope everyone has noticed the "Green Team's" lovely and informative additions to the space. We have constructed various decorative elements from recycled materials which incorporate various facts and figures regarding our environmental impact.

The Lounge at the Robert Moss Theater for instance has an entire wall devoted to the plastic industry and reasons we should rethink our dependency on plastic. We utilized green hangers donated from Materials for the Arts, and re-purposed them to display small containers which now contain information pertaining to the impact of plastic.

Directly beneath this display is our Book Swap! If there is anything on the shelf that catches your eye feel free to bring in one of those long lost reads in the back of your closet and switch it out for a "pre-loved" one. I had my eye on a Jonathan Safran Foer Novel I haven't had the chance to read.

Over at the Gene Frankel we have a beautiful display focused on H20 usage, and spreading awareness of how to save every drop we can. Did you know by putting a closed empty plastic container in your toilet's tank you can help minimize your water use? This way your also re-purposing a plastic container! There is so much useful information out there, and every tiny choice makes a difference. Against the wall we also have re-purposed some carpet samples (also donated from Materials for The Arts) as displays which focus on New York's environmental impact. Additionally there is a vertical banner highlighting all the ways you can recycle or reuse all of your old electronics. This was made out of discarded computer paper and images cut from magazines. I'm pretty sure it's official that VHS tapes have gone out of style, so you might as well make good use of them! All of our displays are re-purposed or recyclable materials. It's truly amazing how you can transform items you otherwise would have disposed of.

Have you noticed the large multi-colored light fixture in the lounge? Next time you're in the lounge check it out and see if you can you guess what it was made of or how that was constructed.

LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE AT OUR UPCOMING EVENT "THE CLIMATE PROJECT".
It's an exciting and engaging presentation that sheds a positive perspective on our role in the environment. Its happening WEDNESDAY JUNE 6Th, 6:00pm at the Gene Frankel Theater. There are shows happening before and after so why not stop by and join the fun!

Join Planet Connections Theatre Festivity on Facebook and Twitter.  

Follow The Greener Room on Facebook.

Another Place goes to HERE

A happy announcement!

The Anthropologists' Another Place - which received a staged reading in the 2010 Planet Connections Theatre Festivity - is performing at HERE this week!

What if you could build your own universe and leave your troubles behind - would you do it?  Another Place examines the precarious role of the individual in the age of climate change and asks: does science liberate or destroy us?

Performances are:

Wednesday, April 27 @ 7PM

Thursday, April 28 @ 7PM

Friday, April 29 @ 7PM

Tickets are only $25

 

In the spirit of Planet Connections and eco-friendly theatre, the show was designed with reused and repurposed materials: discarded cardboard, wallpaper, Christmas lights, discarded nut canisters,soda and beers cans, and a sundry assortment of often disposed and underused plastic items, such as water bottles and plastic cutlery – all items that, ordinarily, would have been trashed even without having been used. 

We hope you'll check out a performance this week and see the next phase of Another Place!  Thanks, Planet Connections, for giving us our first place!  :)

This production is a part of the Artists Lodge through HEREstay, HERE’s curated rental program, which provides artists with subsidized space and equipment, as well as technical and administrative support.

Resource Alert: FAB Load-Out Event April 9 @ noon - 5PM

Hi everyone - this is a reposting from Materials for the Arts, which is an awesome resource and a friend to many artists, including productions in this year's Planet Connections Theatre Festivity.

This weekend, Fourth Arts Block (FAB) will be hosting their Load-Out event in the East Village. This Saturday from noon to 5pm, head down to 19 East 3rd Street where FAB brings together gently used materials of all sorts from arts organizations throughout the East Village for a community reuse event. Discover treasure amongst what others can’t use or don’t need any more. Recipients of MFTA receive free admission, and general admission is $3 to cover administration costs. Everything you take away, however, is entirely free of charge.

If you are interested in donating, FAB will accept goods this Friday from noon to 7pm. Any donations not taken during the event that fall under our guidelines will be donated to MFTA, so there is sure to be lots of great materials! Please support this wonderful display of community reuse and spread the word!

If you have any questions, please contact Betsy Imershein, Sustainability Consultant of Fourth Arts Block, at 917-364-1110 or betsy@fabnyc.org. 

If you go, let us know what  you find!

Trash Your E-Waste the RIGHT Way!

Do you have electronic equipment piling up at home?  Old cell phones, computer speakers and mice, a DVD player that no longer works?  (Yup, that last one is me.)

On Wednesday, February 23, Broadway Green Alliance is hosting an e-waste collection from 11AM-2PM on 45th Street & Broadway (Minskoff Theatre Walkway).   You can find info and factoids on their Facebook page.

For those who haven't heard of the BGA before, it was founded in 2008, as an industry-wide initiative to educate, motivate and inspire the theatre community and its patrons to adopt environmentally practices in theatre production and everyday life.  We heart BGA!

So, on your lunch break, consider disposing of electronic equipment in a safer, cleaner, more environmentally friendly way!  Because e-waste does NOT belong in a landfill!!!  Sorry for the bold font, but I'm passionate about this one.

Do you have other ways/places to recycle or repurpose your e-waste?

INSPIRATION ALERT: Well Worn Theatre Company

Love this story from Soweto, South Africa about theatre engaging young people (and older ones too!) in science and environmental studies.

The Well Worn Theatre Company, led by Kyla Davis, is founded on a strong environmental ethos.  Their current play, Pollution Revolution, teaches kids in schools about the tenets of environmentalism: reduce, re-use, recycle.

Davis said: "We want to inspire a new generation of South Africans to learn new habits and get them to guilt their parents into adapting their lifestyle (to be more socially and ecologically responsible).

You can read the full article here.

I love the energy that this company exudes, especially in their mission statement:

Well Worn is your dose of chaotic creativity in an increasingly uber-clean, sterilized, character-less, brand-spanking-new, made-in-elsewhere, air-conditioned world that we lately so often find ourselves surrounded by.

Do you know of other theatre companies bringing environmentally aware art into the classroom?  If so, tell us about it in the comments!