BIO
Thaddeus Nagey is a union actor and playwright. Nagey is a graduate student at California State University, Northridge, currently writing his thesis on Applied Theatre and how performance can intervene with social issues.
TITLE
“Straw Buried Fields, Forever: A Research and Applied Theatre Hybrid Presentation”
ABSTRACT
This study investigates effectiveness of drama as a tool for learning and social change. I have written a few plays about two of the most important issues facing humanity: climate change and homelessness. This is a hybrid presentation with research on anthropocene, plastic pollution, and a short performance of how plastic straws are a destructive force impacting our planet. A recent study by NPR found that nearly 55% of teachers polled in the U.S. were afraid to teach climate change issues because they felt it was out of their depth of expertise.
The performance is a scene from a live play and short film adaptation that I wrote, “Straw Buried Fields, Forever,” a three-act dark comedy musical. The full-length original play is about the history and devastating impact that plastic straws have on our planet. The Department of Natural Resources states plastics can take more than an unforeseeable 600 years to decompose. Our culture has created environmental waste of used straws, fishing line, and Styrofoam, likely polluting our planet for more than a millennium. The play uses techniques inspired by Bertolt Brecht (Mother Courage and Her Children), Sophie Treadwell (Machinal), and Samuel Beckett (End Game). Characters are based on real people, news articles and manufacturing processes. Fact, history, and plight are expressed through song and comedy. This presentation’s ultimate intent is to entertain, inform, and inspire a call for theatrical and participative learning techniques to be utilized in our school systems.
EVENT
NYU Global Posthuman 2020
Thaddeus Nagey is a union actor and playwright. Nagey is a graduate student at California State University, Northridge, currently writing his thesis on Applied Theatre and how performance can intervene with social issues.
TITLE
“Straw Buried Fields, Forever: A Research and Applied Theatre Hybrid Presentation”
ABSTRACT
This study investigates effectiveness of drama as a tool for learning and social change. I have written a few plays about two of the most important issues facing humanity: climate change and homelessness. This is a hybrid presentation with research on anthropocene, plastic pollution, and a short performance of how plastic straws are a destructive force impacting our planet. A recent study by NPR found that nearly 55% of teachers polled in the U.S. were afraid to teach climate change issues because they felt it was out of their depth of expertise.
The performance is a scene from a live play and short film adaptation that I wrote, “Straw Buried Fields, Forever,” a three-act dark comedy musical. The full-length original play is about the history and devastating impact that plastic straws have on our planet. The Department of Natural Resources states plastics can take more than an unforeseeable 600 years to decompose. Our culture has created environmental waste of used straws, fishing line, and Styrofoam, likely polluting our planet for more than a millennium. The play uses techniques inspired by Bertolt Brecht (Mother Courage and Her Children), Sophie Treadwell (Machinal), and Samuel Beckett (End Game). Characters are based on real people, news articles and manufacturing processes. Fact, history, and plight are expressed through song and comedy. This presentation’s ultimate intent is to entertain, inform, and inspire a call for theatrical and participative learning techniques to be utilized in our school systems.
EVENT
NYU Global Posthuman 2020
