Climate Storytelling | Plays in Progress
New date!
Get a behind-the-scenes look at the future of environmental storytelling. Join Princeton’s High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) and Lewis Center for the Arts (LCA) and the Civilians Theatre company for an evening featuring presentations by Next Forever playwrights Kate Douglas and Kate Tarker. Douglas’s play, If I Forget Thee, O Earth, puts the cosmic and the terrestrial in the context of mass extinction events (present and past) through the lens of astrobiology. Topia by Tarker is an irreverent, multigenerational play about climate change and authoritarianism in Providence, Rhode Island.
Followed by a conversation with Eric Larson, Senior Research Engineer in the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, and Steve Cosson, Visiting Lecturer in Theater, Lewis Center for the Arts and Artistic Director of the Civilians.
This event is free and open to the public. No registration required.
The Next Forever is a novel partnership among The Civilians theater company, the High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) and Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. The initiative seeks to create new stories for a changing planet, exploring how dynamic storytelling can engage vital environmental subjects and provide the vision and inspiration society needs to navigate the challenges of our planet’s future—the “next forever.”
Two artists are selected each year to spend time on the Princeton campus as guests, engage with faculty and students, and participate in an ongoing series of public events and performances over the course of a year-long residency and two-year commissioning agreement.
KATE TARKER PROJECT – TOPIA
Marty lives in a climate dystopia. She’s writing a novel to imagine the potential of the future. Leah lives in a climate utopia. She’s writing a novel to uncover the horrors of the past. What starts out as writing projects morphs into a real-world quest as Marty and Leah search for each other across a disorienting landscape of rapid political, environmental, and technological change. “Topia by Kate Tarker is an irreverent, multigenerational play about climate change and authoritarianism in Providence, Rhode Island.”
About Kate Tarker
Kate Tarker is an American playwright who grew up in Germany. She writes offbeat countercultural plays and musicals for fun-loving audiences. Her works include The Counterfeit Opera (Little Island), Montag (Soho Rep, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe), THUNDERBODIES (Soho Rep), Dionysus Was Such a Nice Man (The Wilma, FoolsFURY), and Laura and the Sea (Rivendell Theatre Ensemble).
KATE DOUGLAS PROJECT – If I Forget Thee, O Earth
An astronaut and a robot are rehearsing a mission to Mars in the Utah desert that is interrupted by the discovery of fossils. When a paleontologist arrives to assess their significance, it sparks a conflict around the question of habitability and sustainability on Earth and Mars – in this age of mass extinction, whose work is more vital: the futurists or the historians?
If I Forget Thee, O Earth is a full-length play that puts the cosmic and the terrestrial in the context of mass extinction events (present and past) through the lens of astrobiology.
About Kate Douglas
Kate Douglas is a writer, performer, and composer. Recent work includes The Apiary (Second Stage: NY Critics Pick, Outer Critics Circle Award nomination),Tulipa (New York Stage & Film), and hag with Grace McLean (Vivace Award). She is the recipient of a Jonathan Larson Grant for Music & Lyrics as well as the Judith Royer Excellence in Playwriting Award. She has been awarded residencies at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Swale House on Governors Island, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, Millay Arts, and Goodspeed Musicals, among others. Alum of the Dramatists Guild Fellows Program, Colt Coeur, The Civilian R&D Group, GTG Speakers Corner, and The Orchard Project Greenhouse.
- This event has passed.
Climate Storytelling | Plays in Progress
Mon, Mar 23, 2026 ・ 5:00 PM
Briger Hall Auditorium, 11 Ivy Lane
New date!
Get a behind-the-scenes look at the future of environmental storytelling. Join Princeton’s High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) and Lewis Center for the Arts (LCA) and the Civilians Theatre company for an evening featuring presentations by Next Forever playwrights Kate Douglas and Kate Tarker. Douglas’s play, If I Forget Thee, O Earth, puts the cosmic and the terrestrial in the context of mass extinction events (present and past) through the lens of astrobiology. Topia by Tarker is an irreverent, multigenerational play about climate change and authoritarianism in Providence, Rhode Island.
Followed by a conversation with Eric Larson, Senior Research Engineer in the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, and Steve Cosson, Visiting Lecturer in Theater, Lewis Center for the Arts and Artistic Director of the Civilians.
This event is free and open to the public. No registration required.
The Next Forever is a novel partnership among The Civilians theater company, the High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) and Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. The initiative seeks to create new stories for a changing planet, exploring how dynamic storytelling can engage vital environmental subjects and provide the vision and inspiration society needs to navigate the challenges of our planet’s future—the “next forever.”
Two artists are selected each year to spend time on the Princeton campus as guests, engage with faculty and students, and participate in an ongoing series of public events and performances over the course of a year-long residency and two-year commissioning agreement.
KATE TARKER PROJECT – TOPIA
Marty lives in a climate dystopia. She’s writing a novel to imagine the potential of the future. Leah lives in a climate utopia. She’s writing a novel to uncover the horrors of the past. What starts out as writing projects morphs into a real-world quest as Marty and Leah search for each other across a disorienting landscape of rapid political, environmental, and technological change. “Topia by Kate Tarker is an irreverent, multigenerational play about climate change and authoritarianism in Providence, Rhode Island.”
About Kate Tarker
Kate Tarker is an American playwright who grew up in Germany. She writes offbeat countercultural plays and musicals for fun-loving audiences. Her works include The Counterfeit Opera (Little Island), Montag (Soho Rep, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe), THUNDERBODIES (Soho Rep), Dionysus Was Such a Nice Man (The Wilma, FoolsFURY), and Laura and the Sea (Rivendell Theatre Ensemble).
KATE DOUGLAS PROJECT – If I Forget Thee, O Earth
An astronaut and a robot are rehearsing a mission to Mars in the Utah desert that is interrupted by the discovery of fossils. When a paleontologist arrives to assess their significance, it sparks a conflict around the question of habitability and sustainability on Earth and Mars – in this age of mass extinction, whose work is more vital: the futurists or the historians?
If I Forget Thee, O Earth is a full-length play that puts the cosmic and the terrestrial in the context of mass extinction events (present and past) through the lens of astrobiology.
About Kate Douglas
Kate Douglas is a writer, performer, and composer. Recent work includes The Apiary (Second Stage: NY Critics Pick, Outer Critics Circle Award nomination),Tulipa (New York Stage & Film), and hag with Grace McLean (Vivace Award). She is the recipient of a Jonathan Larson Grant for Music & Lyrics as well as the Judith Royer Excellence in Playwriting Award. She has been awarded residencies at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Swale House on Governors Island, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, Millay Arts, and Goodspeed Musicals, among others. Alum of the Dramatists Guild Fellows Program, Colt Coeur, The Civilian R&D Group, GTG Speakers Corner, and The Orchard Project Greenhouse.
