Climate Storytelling: Q&A

 

Get a behind-the-scenes look at the future of environmental storytelling. Princeton’s High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) and Lewis Center for the Arts (LCA) and the Civilians Theatre company hosted an evening that featured 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.

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.

Climate Storytelling: Q&A

Publish Date

March 23, 2026

Link to Video

https://youtu.be/4KXu5EQsnvg

Video Length

16:44

 

Get a behind-the-scenes look at the future of environmental storytelling. Princeton’s High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) and Lewis Center for the Arts (LCA) and the Civilians Theatre company hosted an evening that featured 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.

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.