A Play For The Living In A Time Of Extinction - a new drama about the climate crisis - is being staged as a ground-breaking, off-grid, zero-travel production. What’s On catches up with Holly Rose Roughan, artistic director of Headlong, the theatre company producing the show...

“If you are interested in a space to connect, emotionally, with the people in your community in relation to thinking about climate change, this is the play for you.”

Holly Rose Roughan, of award-winning theatre company Headlong, is giving me the lowdown (and maybe a little hard sell) on the company’s latest co-production - A Play For The Living In A Time Of Extinction - and she’s definitely on a roll. 

“It’s a love letter to live theatre. It’s not a show that could happen on television - you’ve got to be in the room. It’s a heart-breaking play but also genuinely funny, moving and human.”

The new drama, which visits the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme this month, is a call to arms about the climate crisis by American writer Miranda Rose Hall. It comes with an innovative - cynics might suggest gimmicky - back story that complements the play’s content but also has the potential to overshadow it.

Not only will the eco-friendly show be powered by bicycles, but an innovative touring model means the only element that actually tours is the script - people and materials do not. In each city a blueprint of the show will be brought to life by local creative teams as part of a ground-breaking experiment in making theatre more eco-friendly. 

“Come and be part of an exciting experiment in sustainability, as this has never been done before in the UK,” urges Holly, who took over as Headlong’s artistic director last August, having joined the company in 2019. “Come and be part of innovative live art and connect with your community in a real way.”

The touring version of the show will be helmed by local director Nyasha Gudo. Associate director on the recent Birmingham Rep hit, Spitting Image, Nyasha is one of the first cohorts from Headlong’s Origins programme, which supports and nurtures artists outside of London. 

Local actor Kimisha Lewis will play the lead role, with support from a community choir and four volunteer cyclists who will power the off-grid production. The latter might sound like a gimmick, but Holly believes it will bring a fascinating dynamic to the production.

“There’s a moment in the show where you go from the national grid into a bike-powered circuit. The audience will see that transition, see electricity created in real time and see volunteer cyclists powering the remainder of the show.

“There’ll be a real sense of how we power the projectors used in the play, how we power the lights, how we power the sound and how much electricity that all takes.”

As well as demonstrating the arbitrary way resources are used - and in some cases wasted - the local angle of the production is also designed to reflect how communities will ultimately lead the fight against the climate crisis.

“We have to collaborate across industries and across countries in the face of the climate emergency.

Everything has got to be bespoke and for the community, so the model of the tour replicates the model of how we’re going to rise up to the challenges we face.”

Community is the central theme of the production, and even though the play is a one-woman show - essentially a monologue from frazzled theatre worker Naomi - Holly believes it transcends that categorisation by creating genuine engagement with the audience. 

“The play is as big as there are people in the room. In the Barbican, where the tour begins, it will feel like a 1,000-person play.  

“It’s a story about how we can feel so alone in the context of the climate crisis, but it’s also a story of hope and catharsis, and a place of reconnecting with community. In the words of Miranda Rose Hall, it’s partly a space to come and emotionally process what living through a climate crisis feels like. I think that’s part of what theatre’s role is - it’s not necessarily a consciousness-raising play, it’s a play to come and unpack our feelings towards this big immovable thing.”

But if all that sounds a bit, well, heavy… Holly is quick to point out that the play is also sharp, smart and very funny. 

“Miranda is a writer with brilliant line-by-line writing, in the same way that many American playwrights who have grown up with sitcoms are very good at witty one-liners. It’s got real intellectual integrity and heft, but it’s people-centred and really acknowledges who’s in the room. There are moments of gentle interaction with the audience.”

The production, which has already ‘toured’ internationally, is Headlong’s second major touring experiment. During the Covid pandemic, the company created Signal Fires, a national festival that saw more than 40 theatre companies telling stories to audiences around fires. It’s hoped that A Play For The Living will create similar community connections, as well as push the envelope in terms of how touring theatre can be made greener.

“There’s a shared aesthetic, a shared heart and a shared set of sustainability guidelines in terms of how we create it, but each production is going to be of that community and will speak to those audiences in a much more specific and bespoke way.

“This is an experiment in a different touring model, but I think what Headlong have been brilliant at in the past, and I hope will continue under my leadership, is being innovators. We’ll always find innovative ways of reaching large numbers of people and audiences, and this is another one of those.

“Our currency as an arts organisation is imagination. It’s really important that we keep deploying that and going, look, we’re capable of creating alternative ways of doing things. This is an experiment; it doesn’t mean we’ll replicate it forever, but it will shape the system and inspire ourselves and the organisations we work with. 

“Theatre allows us to collectively imagine an alternative future, and I believe touring companies can be pollinators of that national imagination.”

by Steve Adams