A Neworld Theatre production presented by the Climate Disaster Project in association with the University of Victoria’s Department of Theatre, Eyes of the Beast: Climate Disaster Stories is about ordinary people surviving these extraordinary times.
Adapted from the award-winning journalism of the Climate Disaster Project, an international newsroom based out of UVic’s Writing department, this documentary theatre production pulls from hundreds of testimonies of people across Canada who have lived through climate change together.
A fishing guide who took his boat into flooded farmland to rescue an alligator. An actor rushed to the hospital for heat stroke after performing in front of the legislature. A mother figuring out how to prepare her child for the future after fire flattened their town.
Climate disaster is not far away, not happening to someone else. It is here now, happening to us. Eyes of the Beast shows how we still have each other during those disasters, creating community amidst catastrophe.
Directed by Theatre alumni Chelsea Haberlin and co-written by Haberlin and Sebastien Archibald (of Vancouver’s acclaimed ITSAZOO theatre company), Eyes of the Beast will also feature climate-survivor testimonies taken by our Writing students.
With CBC as the official media sponsor for this production, every performance will be followed by a facilitated talkback giving audiences an opportunity to reflect on the stories they’ve just heard and share their own experiences of climate disasters. Each show will also feature invited policy listeners from across BC’s political spectrum.
Eyes of the Beast: Climate Disaster Survivor Stories runs Sept 16-21 at UVic’s Phoenix Theatre
Learn more about the Climate Disaster Project