Original play by Biggers, set in the City of Gary, to open Nov. 4
Indiana University Northwest School of the Arts is proud to invite Jeff Biggers, an award-winning historian, journalist, author, and playwright, to serve as the campus’s Climate Narrative Playwright-in-Residence.
Biggers will play a central role in the Climate Season project, a yearlong initiative combining the arts, climate change awareness and campus-community outreach and engagement.
The project will address a global call for climate education and action through a series of theater and community events, combining a multidisciplinary collaboration between the sciences, humanities, and the arts.
“The School of the Arts at IU Northwest is committed to addressing issues associated with the environment and climate change. Our upcoming Climate Season series will engage our campus and the wider community in a conversation about this issue and serve to inspire focused thoughts and actions to face this reality,” said David Klamen, dean of the School of Arts and chancellor’s professor.
Original play: “Kaminski’s Lot”
Through his playwright-in-residence role, Biggers was commissioned to write an original play entitled, “Kaminski’s Lot.” The production opens 7:30 p.m., Thursday, November 4 in the IU Northwest Theater at the Arts & Sciences Building.
“Kaminski’s Lot” follows the journey of a vanload of IU Northwest students and their professor, who must take refuge in a greenhouse in a seemingly abandoned lot in present-day Gary, Ind., when a disastrous storm rolls through the area.
“Drawing from a broad range of interviews, stories and field research collected from IU Northwest students, faculty, and community members in Gary, this production is intimately connected to the Northwest campus, and Northwest Indiana, and fairly unique in the country as a place-based theatre production on climate change and environmental justice,” Biggers said. “In a celebration of storytelling, led by an urban farmer and her niece, this production places the questions of legacy, culture, family and personal histories on stage, in a time of climate crisis.”
Biggers is the founder of the Climate Narrative Project, an arts and advocacy project for schools, universities and community organizations. Over the past decade, he has given lectures, readings and performances at over 100 universities and schools across the country, from the University of California in Berkeley, the University of Mississippi, Yale University to the University of Rome (La Sapienza).
Theatre Northwest invites the public to “Kaminski’s Lot” performances set for 7:30 p.m., Thursday, November 4; Friday, November 5; Thursday, November 11; and Friday November 12, or at 3 p.m. on Saturday, November 6 and Saturday, November 13.
General admission tickets are $10/person. Online reservations are strongly advised: https://go.iu.edu/47NX.
Additional Climate Season events information
Additional Climate Season events include sustainability speakers, a guided tour of Historic Midtown Gary and a microplay fall workshop and spring festival.
For information about the Climate Season project or the School of the Arts, contact Erin McHugh at 219-980-6810 or ermchugh@iu.edu.
