One teen dreams of starving polar bears, while another has a personal encounter with Mother Nature in the Pittsburg High School Earth Day world premiere of “Ignorance is Bliss: A Global Warning.”
Written by California playwright Debbie Lamedman, the play will be presented at 7 p.m. Wednesday and 9 a.m. Thursday in Pittsburg Memorial Auditorium. Both shows are open free to the public, and area schools are welcome to bring students to the Thursday morning performance.
The play was created in a collaboration between Lamedman and students in Greg Shaw’s repertory theater and stage craft students at PHS.
Shaw said that each spring the PHS theater department tries to present a play that deals with situations that are relevant to today’s youth. In 2009 PHS presented “Phat Girls,” also written by Lamedman, which concerned body image issues.
In a Pittsburg Morning Sun story about that production, Shaw mentioned that he was looking for a play to do in 2010 about another issue, possibly environmental issues.
“We started down that path, and found there were not a lot of plays on that topic,” Shaw said. “Then Debbie saw that newspaper story. She contacted me and asked if I would consider commissioning a piece.”
Shaw and his students received a $500 grant from the USD 250 Foundation, and this was used to purchase the rights to the play.
“We got to work as soon as repertory theater season started, did research and sent a document to Debbie with ideas,” Shaw said.
Lamedman sent the class a first draft, they studied it and suggested changes. Shaw said the fourth draft was the final version. “Debbie implemented our changes, sometimes not in the way we thought,” he said. “There were some things she felt strongly about. This was a wonderful lesson for the students on the collaborative process.”
“This is what I do,” the playwright said Friday during a conference call from California. “I love theater because it educates as well as entertains.”
She admitted that the topic was a little challenging. “I wondered, how can I make global warming funny or entertaining? This is Global Warming 101. I think a lot of people are just beginning to learn what it is, much less what they can do about it.”
Lamedman said she walked around her living room acting out all the parts in the show, and even had a couple of actors come over to help. “For a playwright, you don’t know if the play is working until you hear it,” she explained.
“Ignorance Is Bliss” consists of a series of scenes, opening with Josh Wilde as a young man who dreams he is being stalked by starving polar bears. It continues with a morning TV show covering wild fires in California, flash floods in Georgia and a dust storm in Australia.
In the third scene, a young woman, played by Gabby Murnan, argues with her father and brother about the family’s wasteful use of water and energy. In another, a professor explains global warning to a class of apathetic students.
Mollie Stephens portrays a young woman who meets Mother Nature, played by Mackenzie Willis. Mom is burning hot, and Stephens delicately suggests she might be having hot flashes.
“I’m hot because of global warning,” she snaps, and proceeds to take Stephens on a journey through time to show her how rapidly the earth is changing.
A second family scene shows Murnan, the daughter, discussing with her parents and brother the steps they can take, such as switching to energy efficient light bulbs and using less water for showers.
The play ends with Wilde having another dream, of floating in the cosmos and seeing the world in flames. “The planet is burning up,” he says. “All we have to do is put out the fire.”
Several of the students have already started trying to do that. “I turn out lights,” said Alison Parsons. “This has made a difference in my life.”
“When Greg and I first spoke, I had been aware of global warning, but now I’m fascinated with it,” Lamedman said. “I am green now.”
“It only takes one person to start the helping process,” noted Kelsey Parks.
And, Shaw said, even if the skeptics are right and global warning isn’t a big problem after all, “it still can’t possibly hurt to recycle.”
PITTSBURG —
