Theatre Design & Production Reimagined:

Four Principles for a Sustainable Future

By Paul Brunner and Michael Mehler

Published in TD&T, Vol. 49 No. 3 (summer 2013)

Theatre Design & Technology, the journal for design and production
professionals in the performing arts and entertainment industry, is published
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theatre design
&production
reimagined
reimagined
reimagined
reimagined
reimagined
4 principles for a sustainable future

by paul brunner and michael mehler

Across much of the globe, many individuals in the live entertainment

industry have been working to figure out ways to produce their work
without creating an adverse impact on the natural environment. These
efforts have been taking place over many years and in many ways, but
they have often been focused on only one specialty—architecture,
design, production, stage management—and most publication and
presentation on the topic has been by individuals discussing their
own efforts. This article is the result of a year-long investigation that
has aimed to bridge a few of those specialties.

theatre design & technology

24 s u m m e r 2013 Copyright 2013 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc.
 As a designer and a technical director, we visited a number
of people trying to be more sustainable in theatre in a variety
of locations. We wanted to evaluate both the environmental and
aesthetic effects of these efforts. At the end, we came up with
four principles that we believe can guide sustainable design and
production for live entertainment in the future.
In addition to spending significant time reading about and
discussing sustainability together, we took three trips that cov-
ered a wide geographical span. We first ventured to New York
City in October of 2012, where we toured the facilities and in-
terviewed the key personnel at the New Amsterdam Theatre/
Disney Theatrical, the Gershwin Theatre, where Wicked is play-
ing, Hudson Scenic Studios, and Showman Fabricators. We also
met with the steering committee of the Broadway Green Alliance
(BGA), which included Donyale Werle, scenic designer of Peter
and the Starcatcher, and we attended her show as well.
In January of 2013, we flew to London and then hopped a
train to Bristol to tour that city’s historic Theatre Royal, home to the
Bristol Old Vic, and to meet with Global Design Solutions (GDS),
Copyright 2013 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc.
which specializes in LED lighting, primarily for architectural appli-
cations. We hopped back to London where we attended the Green
Lighting Social at the Bush Theatre in London, sponsored by En-
tertaining Sustainability; met with Mhora Samuel, director of the
Theatres Trust; toured the facilities at the Royal Central School of
Speech and Drama (CSSD); met with Sian Alexander and Sholeh
Johnston of Julie’s Bicycle, a not- for-profit organization working
with arts groups to reduce their environmental impact; and finally
we toured the Arcola Theatre with their sustainability manager, Fei-
matta Conteh, and attended its production of Olga’s Room.
Back in the United States, we went to Phoenix, where we
attended a production of Click Clack Moo! at Childsplay and
met with the company’s production manager, Anthony Runfola.
Childsplay received a Met Life/TCG A-ha! Program grant to in-
vestigate sustainable production. In San Diego we met with an-
other A-Ha! Program recipient, the Mo`olelo Performing Arts
Company, as well as with Ben Thoron, who has worked as tech-
nical director with Donyale Werle on two productions at The
Old Globe. Michael also visited California Institute of the Arts
on his own and met with Miranda Wright, co-founder of the
Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts (CSPA), and Leslie
Tamaribuchi, who teaches fundraising and cultural policy and
leads Cal Arts’ sustainability seminar.
Broadway Green Alliance
www.broadwaygreen.com
The Broadway Green Alliance educates, motivates, and
inspires the entire theatre community and its patrons to
implement environmentally friendlier practices. Information
about the Green Captains program is available at www.
broadwaygreen.com/portfolio/green-captains/
theatre design & technology
s u m m e r 2013 25

Sustainability Frameworks
A common comment heard among those advocating for more
sustainable theatre practices is that we are many years behind
other industries in these endeavors. While there are published
sources specific to theatre, several books about sustainabil-
ity from other perspectives helped us frame this investigation.
What follows are compressed summaries of each.
In their book Cradle to Cradle, architect William Mc-
Donough and chemist Michael Braungart advocate designing
for circular life cycles, not linear manufacturing models that
take raw materials, turn them into products, and then dispose
of those products and any byproducts. Although the authors
recognize that the current practice of recycling beats doing
nothing, they point out that recycling takes a great amount of
energy, it may use harmful chemicals, it usually generates some
waste, and it only postpones a product’s trip to the landfill by
one or two uses.
Most important, McDonough and Braungart differentiate
between eco-efficiency and eco-effectiveness. The former has
its roots in the industrial revolution and its combative relation-
ship with nature. Eco-efficiency focuses on making the most
with the least. In contrast, eco-effectiveness looks to nature as
something to be engaged, not controlled; eco-effective design
“replenishes, restores, and nourishes the rest of the world”
(McDonough and Braungart 2002, 78).
Much of the greening work in theatre has followed the eco-
efficiency model, which is an easy transition since designers and
technicians have long prided themselves on making magic with
limited resources. But that does not mean that those interested
in greening theatre cannot think eco-effectively. Based on the
principle that “design is a signal of intention,” that it “is based
on the attempt to fulfill human needs in an evolving technical
and cultural context,” McDonough and Braungart promote and
model “products and systems that celebrate an abundance of
human creativity, culture, and productivity” (McDonough and
Braungart 2002, 16).
They conclude by offering five guiding principles for de-
sign and manufacturing:
• Signal your intention: commit to a new paradigm.
• Restore: aim for positive cultural, material, spiritual,
ecological, and economic growth.
• Innovate further: be open to feedforward, not just
feedback.
• Understand and prepare for the learning curve: enable
change by allocating money, space, and time.
• Exert intergenerational responsibility: do not saddle
future generations with this generation’s problems.
(McConough and Braungart 2002, 182-186)
Andres Edwards’s Thriving Beyond Sustainability con-
tains fewer practical examples than Cradle to Cradle, but what
it calls the SPIRALS framework overtly integrates sustainabil-
theatre design & technology
26 s u m m e r 2013
ity with cultural structures. Sustainability for Edwards is not
simply a task of effective product design. He introduces seven
principles that define the interconnection between social and
environmental responsibility.
• Scalable: find solutions that can work in a variety of
circumstances (local to global).
• Place-making: understand the historical, cultural, and
biological aspects of a community in order to bring
individuals together to effect change.
• Intergenerational: emphasize long-term benefits.
• Resilient: create a system that can absorb disturbance
and reorganize so as to retain essentially the same
function, structure, identity, and feedbacks.
• Accessible: enable social and environmental justice for all.
• Life-affirming: create long-term and regenerative systems.
• Self-Care: replenish ourselves and our spirits. (Edwards
2010, 151-164)
Although Edwards does not completely ignore economic
structures, he does not address them directly either. The real-
ity is that all production—for-profit and not-for-profit theatres
and other arts organizations—is part of business operations.
As such, it is important to consider the interconnection between
economic structures and sustainability in contemporary life.
In a recent article in Nature + Culture (vol. 7 no. 3),
Wendy Lynne Lee asserts that several writers on sustainability
(including Edwards) have all but given up on making serious
change because none of them calls into question the socioeco-
nomic structures—particularly globalized capitalism—that
contribute to corporate and individual decisions that privilege
a positive economic balance over positive ecological steward-
ship. Although we do not agree with all its points, we do agree
with the author that to make serious sustainable change, we
need to question common practices, economic or otherwise.
Most every design and production choice we encoun-
tered during our research did not challenge the standard
modes of theatre operations. Perhaps the only radical change
we discovered was Tanja Beer’s The Living Stage at the Cas-
tlemaine Festival in Australia, where the outdoor stage envi-
ronment was made up of edible plants grown of, by, and for
the local community. Any proposal for green practice should
question underlying socioeconomic structures, but a more
radical approach to production (not just theatrical produc-
tion) is not always viable in current socioeconomic circum-
stances. There is no identifiable single choice that led to the
increasing dangers we have created in our world; there will
not be a single step that turns around our circumstances. We
cannot dismantle the system within which we work, but we
can attempt to alter that system a bit at a time.
As a leading consultant to major corporations that op-
erate at the top of the current economic paradigm, Carol
Sanford argues that businesses must be ecologically and so-
cially responsible and that such “responsibility is a practical
skill, not a utopian ideal espoused by others” (Sanford 2011,
xxxix). She puts forth that businesses are like all living things
Copyright 2013 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc.
within an ecosystem, that they “either contribute value or re-
ceive it,” and that, “the ones that endure are the ones that
do both, even as the world changes” (Sanford 2011, xxxvii).
Sanford provides several case studies of businesses that have
approached their operations by balancing the needs of five
interrelated stakeholder groups. While she initially defines
these groups discretely, in practice often there are overlap-
ping members within each:
• Customers: those who purchase and use the product
• Co-creators: those involved in production from sourcing
to selling and everything in between
• Earth: the provider of component materials and
recipient of any waste
• Community: those who live near any production stage
• Investors: those with a financial interest in production
(Sanford 2011, 29–36)
Like Edwards and McDonough and Braungart, Sanford
believes that sustainable solutions must focus on long-term
planning and that businesses must think of their work in cycles,
not simply in linear distribution chains. In essence, she asserts
that environmentally ethical businesses not only enjoy a clear
conscience but also that they will realize profits in the near and
distant future.
Treading the line between ecological and economic respon-
sibility are Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins.
In Natural Capitalism, they put forward two key ideas that in-
tegrate manufacturing and ecology. The first is extended pro-
duction responsibility (EPR). In this model, the manufacturer
and consumer agree to a period of product service instead of a
one-time product sale. Instead of focusing on the latter, in which
the product depreciates until the end of its life
cycle when it is disposed by the consumer, EPR
encourages the manufacturer to design products
that provide services with less raw materials consumption. The
second idea is whole system engineering (WSE), which examines
the entire design in order to make it more efficient and effective.
In many ways, WSE is the more difficult approach to implement
because it means reviewing, and perhaps rescinding, established
practices and devising new ones.
Amory, Lovins, and Lovins also discuss how a combined
intellectual and emotional framework is used by “business,
citizens, and governments to negotiate and choose about
economics and the environment” (Hawken 1999, 310).
They share Donella Meadows’s four worldviews, or personal
mindsets, that use somewhat stereotypical colors: blues are
mainstream free-marketers, technological and economic op-
timists; reds are socialists fueled by the growing gap between
rich and poor; greens are environmentalists that want more
“mindful” economic structures; and whites do not entirely
agree or oppose any of the other three. Using this structure
and Meadows’s conclusion that no viewpoint is entirely in the
right, the authors of Natural Capitalism assert that it is best
Copyright 2013 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc.
to understand and respect all four worldviews and that “solu-
tions lie in understanding the interconnectedness of problems,
not in confronting them in isolation” (Hawken 1999, 313).
We are primarily interested in the way so many things
in the entertainment industry are interconnected despite
their differing needs and perspectives. Any change to one
aspect of the live entertainment industry will affect myriad
others. Based on the works discussed above, we determined
four shared principles that apply to emerging ecologically-
minded initiatives.
• Community-minded: Work with and for the communities
of theatre makers and theatre goers—including the
audiences, the artists and artisans, the manufacturers
and retailers of products used, the architects, the
neighbors of the theatres and shops, and the boards
of directors and investors—to make a better social,
economic, and ecological experience.
• Local: Create solutions appropriate for the given
circumstances of the particular theatre company. Even
in the same geographical location, different artistic,
personnel, and business models already require different
solutions for other aspects of their operations; ecological
sustainability solutions are no different.
• Intergenerational: Focus on long term planning—
social, artistic, ecological, and fiscal. The artistic,
social, and material byproducts of our work will extend
beyond the run of the show, whether it is one weekend
or ten years.
• Positive: Do not focus on self-sacrifice or doing less
bad; focus on creating a better life. Be more effective
than efficient.
The Theatres Trust
www.theatrestrust.org.uk
The Theatres Trust is the National Advisory Body for
Theatres, protecting theatres for everyone, operating
nationally in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern
Ireland. It advises in the areas of planning, regeneration
and development, architecture and design, heritage,
and theatre. It sponsored Ecovenue, a three-year
environmental sustainability project with forty-eight
theatres across London. The project provided advice
that led to improvements in environmental performance
in each participating arts venue.
theatre design & technology
s u m m e r 2013 27

Sustainability in Practice: Obstacles
and Successes
Although the theatre practitioners we interviewed represented a
wide artistic, social, and economic spread, they all faced similar
obstacles and successes. Three major areas at every institution
became apparent during our investigation: awareness and com-
munication, finding money and time to overcome the learning
curve—an idea McDonough and Braungart emphasize—and
making sustainability a core value held by all stakeholders.
Most advocates for sustainability have recognized the need
to increase awareness of the major ecological impact of theatri-
cal production. At each company and in each region the move
toward sustainability began with a small core of people who per-
sistently advocated their positions until others began to work with
them. Wider communication by the growing core then targeted
other practitioners as well as funders and audiences. The The-
atres Trust in the United Kingdom hosted numerous Sustainability
Summits at PLASA, and Childsplay worked with the Arizona State
University Global Institute of Sustainability to host summits and
workshops with other Phoenix practitioners. The Partnership
for Academic Leadership in Sustainability integrates social and
ecological sustainability at thirty-three schools of art and design
in the United States. Julie’s Bicycle works with British music and
theatre producers as they become more sustainable. The Broad-
way Green Alliance (BGA) seeks to educate, motivate, and inspire
the American commercial theatre community and its patrons to
choose environmentally friendlier practices.
The BGA’s Green Captain program identifies one or more
volunteers from the production team to advocate positive sus-
tainability efforts on Broadway productions. A version of this
program is now expanding to colleges and universities through-
Julie’s Bicycle
www.juliesbicycle.com
Julie’s Bicycle is a not for profit organisation making
sustainability intrinsic to the business, art and ethics of
the creative industries. Their mission is to encourage
the arts and creative industries to act on the causes
of climate change, environmental degradation and
resource inequalities. They want to take environmental
solutions to scale thereby demonstrating the creative
community’s capacity for society-wide leadership.
theatre design & technology
28 s u m m e r 2013
out the country. In New York City, the BGA has worked with
theatre owners to upgrade their facilities and equipment to
reduce natural resource consumption. It also has sponsored
a number of recycling drives in Times Square for Broadway au-
dience members to bring their reusable goods such as textiles.
These small steps illustrate a widespread effort to communicate
a consistent message with a particular community of patrons.
Conversations with those engaging in more sustainable
practices and with onlookers alike suggest that a large num-
ber of theatre makers accept the notion that more sustainable
theatre is a good idea. But even theatres leading in sustain-
able production, such as the Arcola Theatre in London, face
challenges. Feimatta Conteh noted that basic principles of a
sustainability initiative should be consistently reinforced with
staff. Even where there is an institutional commitment, human
nature takes over, and individuals do not necessarily alter es-
tablished practices.
In the United Kingdom, funding for sustainability seems
to be more ingrained than it is in the United States. Sustainabil-
ity is a “key consideration” for funding from the Arts Council’s
Capital Programme, and in February 2012, Arts Council Eng-
land announced that all major program funding agreements
will include environmental sustainability guidance and require-
ments. (Arts Council 2012)
Front of house operations provide the highest returns on
investment in highly efficient lighting and HVAC technologies.
Production stage lighting runs a few hours per performance,
whereas the lights in hallways, rehearsal halls, shops, studios,
and auditorium and lobby areas are almost always switched
on. LED or fluorescent fixtures in these spaces can reduce
energy consumption and labor to replace lamps. In addition
to new technologies, effective HVAC management produces
immediate savings.
The two commercial production studios we
visited have looked to their facilities to gain sav-
ings. Hudson Scenic Studios was considering cost-saving and
energy-saving lighting fixtures throughout their expansive facil-
ity, and Showman Fabricators has already made the move to
high efficiency shop fixtures through an agreement with their
energy supplier. However, efforts to use greener materials or
methods are dependent upon the wishes of the client. Either
studio is happy to work with sustainable materials so long as
the designer and producer specify them and understand the
associated costs. Showman includes a brief statement on every
quote submitted to potential clients stating that there are envi-
ronmentally responsible solutions available upon request.
Donyale Werle, who won the Tony Award for best scenery
design in 2012 for Peter and the Starcatcher, is entirely de-
voted to sustainable design. The Starcatcher set was made with
many reusable materials. But the choice to reuse found materi-
als adds significant labor to the production process, labor that
must come from the shop, Werle, and/or her assistants.
In many instances, producing organizations lack funds or
institutional commitment to spend on sustainability initiatives.
Copyright 2013 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc.
Several interviewees noted that donors do not want to invest in
unseen efficiencies as part of major renovation projects. Fund-
ing a storage facility, a geothermal heat pump, new workspace
lighting, or solar panels may not be viewed as a glitzy aspect of
a theatre’s operations. But creative marketing, together with a
dedicated response to such funding that places it on par with
any other major donation for traditionally high profile areas
(theatre, lobby, box office, etc.) could prove fruitful for orga-
nizations. Others observed that artists are unwilling to spend
more per item on sustainable materials and therefore reduce
the quantity of items affordable within limited production bud-
gets. In both instances, the long-term ecological benefits can
outweigh the short-term costs, but the quantifiable economic
argument is for facilities changes because they draw resources
24/7 and productions do not. Many investments in infrastruc-
ture items, such as house lighting and HVAC, can reduce energy
consumption by such a factor as to have three- to six-year re-
turns on investment.
Most resident theatre production budgets come to a zero
balance by year’s end, and each show is considered as a distinct
book of expenses. Such an approach does not encourage inter-
generational (or even interseasonal) thinking and focuses on
short-term costs and benefits. While capital and facilities proj-
ects regularly are considered across several fiscal years, pro-
ductions are not. Such an approach endorses thinking about
each show (or at best each season of shows) as a discrete unit.
The reality is often that materials from one show could be used
multiple times, but in order to provide aesthetic variety theatres
rarely reuse scenic materials. However, with thoughtful storage
use and planned modification, scenic components could easily
reappear a few years apart without negating aesthetic quality.
Single-cycle thinking reduces the possibility of distributing the
cost among shows not in the same season. In response to this
dilemma, Childsplay moved to a three-year season planning
cycle that permitted better prediction of production component
lifespan and the repetition of entire productions. They also have
retained designers for multiple productions in a single contract
so as to encourage thoughtful reuse of materials from one show
to another. These efforts will help to save and reuse scenic ele-
ments (or even entire sets) that would previously have been
sent to the dumpster. (Runfola 2011)
Another commonly discussed operations shift to more
sustainable production is for theatres in the same area to
share purchasing and storage of raw materials. If they can
agree to a shared warehouse of products, then they would be
able to expand options beyond what is available at the com-
mon lumber outlets such as Home Depot and Lowe’s. Addi-
tionally the theatres would have the leverage of purchasing
materials in bulk, thereby reducing the cost per unit of more
sustainable materials. However, such endeavors have not
flourished for logistical reasons.
A more successful approach has been to create coopera-
tive scenery and property storage facilities, where members
place specific pieces that may be used later by themselves or
Copyright 2013 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc.
by other members. Such an approach not only makes fuller use
of manufactured pieces but also opens up valuable space for
fabrication at each member’s shop. In England, Scenery Sal-
vage takes away scenic materials in order to repurpose them.
Located about an hour from central London (even Glasgow and
Edinburgh are only about six hours away), items for purchase
include doors for about $20 and large casters for about $6. An-
thony Augliera Moving and Storage and Theatre Biz Recycling
in New York City provide similar services. These are notable
services, but these companies focus on the waste stream and
therefore take responsibility away from theatres and production
houses, which then do not have to think in a cradle-to-cradle
manner. To be more fully sustainable, production should be in-
tegrated with reclamation and reuse along the lines of Hawken,
Lovins, and Lovins’s extended production responsibility.
What has become apparent in our research is that many
of these ideas will succeed if there is individual or institutional
commitment to making them happen. Nowhere does this seem
so unified than in and around Times Square in Manhattan. Indi-
viduals serve as Green Captains on all Broadway shows, making
small changes within current operations. Embracing Edwards’s
“scalable” principle, a College Green Captain program intends
to link the Broadway community with colleges nationwide. In
New York City, theatre buildings have shifted to high-efficiency
(HE) washing machines and LED marquees along with many
less apparent facilities changes. Disney Theatrical’s flagship
theatre, the New Amsterdam, embodies a commitment to being
greener, from more energy-capturing elevator drives to water-
less urinals to LED lighting to natural light permeating the of-
fices through an impressive skylight roof. The building’s chief
engineer, Dan Milan, is committed to investigating energy sav-
ing solutions for the theatre’s physical plant, and all employees
are encouraged to do the same within their individual spaces.
The path to sustainability has a steep learning curve. The-
atre makers are subject to inertia just like everyone else; it takes
energy to change practices that have defined how we work for
years. Several of the people we interviewed commented on how
little time and energy they and others had to figure out new
ways to do things. This perceived lack of time appears to be the
highest hurdle to overcome because becoming more sustain-
able often involves investigations into new materials, tools, and
processes. Also there exists a wide perception that all greener
practices are more labor intensive than traditional ones. It is
perfectly reasonable for theatre makers to resist giving them-
selves additional responsibilities and increasing their own
workloads. The current modes of design and production have
developed throughout decades; being more sustainable means
re-examining these embedded and assumed structures.
New materials for scenery come to market regularly, and
some of them disappear rather quickly as well. Simply keeping
track of what is available is time-consuming, but even more chal-
lenging is learning the best ways to use these materials. Many
scenic designers already specify the use of “grained” (e.g., ply-
wood or lauan) or “smooth” (e.g., MDF or hardboard) surfaces
theatre design & technology
s u m m e r 2013 29
 based on the planned finish. Technical directors understand the
structural capacities of these materials and can build with them
effectively. These aesthetic and structural determinations come
from years of working with the materials. To shift to new mate-
rials, such as Kirei’s sorghum plywood, Smith & Fong’s Plyboo,
or Suberra’s dense cork block, designers, technical directors,
and scenic artists need time to figure out how each of these
surfaces can best serve the needs of the production. Inevitably
there are going to be errors with any new material. Remem-
ber when Masonite was a new flooring option and we didn’t
know about leaving gaps between the sheets? Given that these
materials can cost three to four times as much as the estab-
lished ones, it is unwise to spend precious budget money on
these experiments during production. Further, new materials
do not permeate the residential construction supply chain un-
til they receive widespread acceptance. Once they are tried
and trusted by homebuilders, the products are more widely
distributed and available at local and regional lumber yards.
But this circumstance delays the use of new environmentally
responsible materials for stage scenery, making it all the more
challenging to stay current with product development.
For sustainable lighting, the emergence of LEDs is both
exciting and frustrating. At the Royal Central School of Speech
and Drama (CSSD) Nick Moran likened working with new
LED fixtures in show settings to asking a fine artist to cre-
ate a painting with different brushes and paints on a differ-
ent surface in front of colleagues and on a tight schedule.
This difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that often lighting
designers are asked to work with mixed media, some LED
and some incandescent, meaning that light quality and dim-
ming curves are inconsistent within the plot. To help figure
out new technologies, Moran rented an LED lighting rig for
experimentation at CSSD. His example demonstrates one of
the best ways in which academic design and technology pro-
grams can serve the industry. With their different objectives,
colleges and universities can be sites for experimentation that
ease the burden on design and production for commercial
and nonprofit theatres.
In England, Julie’s Bicycle provides resources for artists
and companies trying to embody sustainable ideals. Its staff
includes administrators, activists, and scientists who work
with performing arts organizations to devise and implement
sustainable strategies through workshops, consultations, and
training. Julie’s Bicycle began in Europe’s music industry
through a focused effort to promote greener touring, mer-
chandising, and packaging, and it extended to studio and
festival operations. Information for the theatre industry soon
followed. In the United States, there is no similar national or-
ganization, but there are many peer-to-peer and information
resources, such as the Broadway Green Alliance and the Cen-
ter for Sustainable Practice in the Arts.
Carving out the time for artists and artisans to become
familiar with emerging materials and techniques is one prob-
lem; deciding when to insert sustainability into the creative
theatre design & technology
30 s u m m e r 2013
process and who is involved at what stages is another. Based
on a sustainability summit experiment in Phoenix, Anthony
Runfola of Childsplay noted that making sustainability choices
early in the design process was essential. (Runfola 2010)
This means that someone well versed in sustainable materi-
als and techniques needs to be involved in design/production
discussions from the beginning. Adding sustainability to these
discussion does require stretching out the standard timeline
of devising a set of drawings, but as Allison Whitlaw, a board
vice president for Mo`olelo observed, once a company has
made the shift to incorporating sustainability, it becomes the
new normal.
But there are numerous hurdles to overcome. Design
and production timelines at most theatres are fairly well es-
tablished. Construction must begin so many weeks before
load-in, drawings must be completed so many weeks be-
fore that, and the director and designer must agree upon an
approach and preliminary sketches so many weeks earlier.
While these deadlines will vary from company to company,
each operates the way it does for very good reasons. It is
a balancing act between paying designers (who by stan-
dard union contract are paid two-thirds of their salary by
the time drawings are submitted) and generating income.
Likewise, designers must also protect their own interests.
Donyale Werle openly admits that she takes on fewer design
projects per year because she spends so much more time
creating greener designs compared to other designers who
operate in the standard model. The Old Globe’s Ben Thoron
reinforced Werle’s extraordinary time commitment, saying
the she spent about a week more on site than other design-
ers. Theatre company business models do not easily enable
extension of the creative process.
Especially at the most ecologically minded companies,
the low hanging fruit has already been picked and most tech-
nologically possible efficiencies have been achieved. What
remains are ongoing expenses that do not help the economic
bottom line, when sustainability becomes an organizational
value considered during the budgeting process. At that point,
designers and technical directors are not in direct control of
the numbers, but artistic directors, managing directors, and
board members are. Leslie Tamaribuchi, who has served as
managing director and a board member for Cornerstone The-
atre Company in Los Angeles, notes that such a systemic shift
can occur during a leadership change. A facilities change can
spark a similar reprioritization. In London, the Arcola Theatre
moved to a new space in 2010 after being forced out of their
original home and achieved a 34 percent reduction in green-
house gas emissions. Seizing the opportunity to reinvent their
theatre operations in a new facility, Arcola received a £1 mil-
lion Arts Council grant to facilitate sustainable operations and
the renovations necessary to transform an old building into a
working theatre. One of their investments, a biomass boiler,
can burn a variety of materials to provide power for a radiant
floor heating system.
Copyright 2013 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc.

Toward a Sustainable Future
Among the theatres we visited, we discovered that a commit-
ment to sustainability seemed to come with greater ease if the
mission of the company emphasized community engagement
more than aesthetic excellence. At first, we reasoned that this
connection could be attributed to an elevated commitment
to community. However, the connection likely has more to
do with a willingness to consider anything as being more im-
portant than aesthetic quality. In the time-money-quality para-
digm, the guidelines for what “quality” means are not clearly
defined. Should theatres prioritize aesthetic quality? Commu-
nity engagement? Financial gain? Carbon neutrality? The issue
is not so much about the variables as it is about how those
variables are measured. In practice, even the standard factors
of time, money, and quality are uniquely gauged for produc-
ing organizations that can range from a poorly funded high
school to a LORT-B regional theatre to a community-based
performance company. What is a lot of time for each group
to work on a production? What counts as cheap or expensive?
How does each measure aesthetic quality? Who pays the rent?
What about the electrical bill? The performers? How should
each producing organization measure its social and environ-
mental impact?
Our initial approach to thinking about a new paradigm
came from Bob Usdin, president of Showman Fabricators,
and his notion of four components—time, money, quality,
and sustainability—where sustainability sat at the center of
the well-worn triangular relationship of fast-good-cheap
(pick two). Both the original trio and Usdin’s adaptation still
position the primary variables in binary terms. Either it is
fast or slow, good or bad, cheap or expensive. The reality in
which everyone operates is that those variables
are interconnected and cannot be considered
to vary simply along a linear path. As a means
to break away from the three-pointed paradigm, we offer
thinking about theatrical design and production from a differ-
ent perspective that is rooted in the shared four sustainability
principles mentioned at the beginning of the article: sustain-
able design and production should be community-minded,
local, intergenerational, and positive.
• Community-minded:
The design and production process currently concen-
trates on a very select community sub-group, namely, artists
creating an experience for audiences. Most discussions about
quality have been limited to the aesthetic experience of the
event itself. When sustainability enters the conversation, the
entire community and their experiences need to be consid-
ered; producers of theatre need to imagine how their artistic
and technical choices affect everyone in social, economic,
and ecological concerns.
During our research, Mo’olelo stood out as the
company most integrated with the community at a social
level. Co-founder and executive artistic director Seema Sueko
Copyright 2013 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc.
developed a particularly intriguing process of consensus
organizing in which a key aspect is “audience casting.”
Scripts under consideration for production are shared with
community groups for comment and perspective. Through this
collaborative practice, Mo’olelo discovers how the community
might react to the piece if it were to go into production, gains
dramaturgical advice, and builds or strengthens ties with
the community, all of which result in long-term community
relationships that go well beyond the stage.
• Local:
The regional theatre movement, which began in the
United States in the 1950s, encouraged artists build strong
connections within their communities and to cater to their
interests. Sustainable design and production also must take
on an approach specific to geographical area and to com-
pany size. Such an approach must of course choose from the
available materials, but it must also embrace the realities of
local theatre people (both creators and consumers) as well
as the realities of how each company operates. Theatres can
define their own sustainable identity based on the strengths
and weaknesses of local resources.
• Intergenerational:
Current models of production focus on the short term—
often a single show and at most a single season or fiscal year.
There are many ways to be more efficient with the resources
available if we think long term. Considering multiple shows
within or across seasons can provide opportunities to create
better aesthetic impact with the money, materials, and labor
we have. Sustainable production also must consider residual
materials beyond the show, both before and after. Physical
items (scenery, props, costumes) are only part of thinking
intergenerationally; the impact of the performance content
Mo`olelo Performing
Arts Company
moolelo.net/green/
Mo`olelo—[mo-oh-Leh-low] is a
Hawaiianw word meaning story, legend,
or narrative. A community-focused,
socially-conscious, Equity theatre company,
Mo`olelo’s mission is to broaden the scope
of San Diego’s cultural environment by
offering professional, socially-conscious
theatre that provides a voice for diverse
and underrepresented populations,
aesthetics, and issues on stage. Mo`olelo
developed a greening initiative in January
2007 in recognition of the fact that theatre,
as it is traditionally practiced, can be
damaging to the environment.
theatre design & technology
s u m m e r 2013 31
 and experience continues to affect the community (often in
ways not envisioned by the production team) long after the
production closes.
• Positive:
Numerous times, the limitations of a production have in
fact made the visual approach more effective. As any teacher
of design knows, the unlimited budget and fully-equipped
theatres often afforded class paper projects do not spark
student creativity in the same way that devising a $100 set
in an adapted space does. Being sustainable may often mean
having access to alternative or fewer resources, but the goal
of theatrical design and production remains the same—to
create an aesthetic experience that best enhances the con-
nection between actors performing characters in a story for
an audience. Sustainable design and production fosters that
connection in a way that also improves the lives of those audi-
ence members—and other community members not in atten-
dance—outside the duration of a single performance.
So far, American and British theatrical design and produc-
tion remains more efficient than effective in McDonough and
Braungart’s terms. Even the most dedicated companies and in-
dividuals do not embrace all four principles; most are focused
on doing less harm, on using fewer resources in order to pro-
duce theatre as they have done before. New approaches remain
to be discovered that fully consider the interconnectedness of
our resources and our art form.
Sustainability in theatre is not yet a value shared by more
than a small minority of theatre makers. Our travels brought to
light that only a few of them are engaged in sustainable produc-
tion, even when their facilities had become more environmen-
tally friendly. However, Nick Moran, noted that some graduates
Center for Sustainable
Practice in the Arts
www.sustainablepractice.org
The CSPA provides a network
of resources to artists and arts
organizations by researching, creating,
gathering and distributing information
with partnering information sources,
and through the development
of special initiatives designed to
enable sustainable practices while
maintaining artistic excellence. The
CSPA views sustainability in art-making
through environmentalism, economic
stability, and strengthened cultural
infrastructure.
theatre design & technology
32 s u m m e r 2013
of CSSD have gained employment in part because of the training
they received in sustainable design and production. The staffs
at both Mo`olelo and Arcola are made aware of the company’s
ecological commitment prior to hiring. Across the profession,
however, the idea of theatres seeking staff with expertise in sus-
tainability has yet to take full root in the United States and is
only beginning to flower in England. v
Paul Brunner is assistant professor and head of
theatre technology at Indiana University-Bloomington.
He received support for this research through the
USITT Grants & Fellowships Program and from Indiana
University’s College of Arts and Sciences.
Michael Mehler is associate professor of theatre at
Allegheny College. He received funding from the Allegheny
College Academic Support Fund and from the Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation.
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Environmental Sustainability into Funding,” Arts Council
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Edwards, Andrés. 2005. The Sustainability Revolution:
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Edwards, Andrés. 2010. Thriving Beyond Sustainability:
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Hawken, Paul, Amory Lovins, and L Hunter Lovins.
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Lee, Wendy Lynne. 2012. “Just Plain Disappointment; Why
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McDonough, William and Michael Braungart. Cradle to
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