There Will Be Monsters is a theatrical game experience for a hopeful climate future, aiming to empower participants with agency over storytelling and decision-making that models a collective climate justice movement. Players representing a multi-species group of heroes travel through a magical version of our own world, seeking tangible solutions to the growing threat of climate "monsters."
We are currently in the process of developing There Will Be Monsters in collaboration with SHC Core Members and young people, with an aim to offer finished versions of the project in 2024.
The first draft of There Will be Monsters was created while artists-in-residence at Usdan Summer Camp for the Arts, with work-in-progress performances taking place July 18-20, 2023 on Usdan's wooded campus. Our team included:
Co-Created & Written by Lanxing Fu & Jem Pickard
Co-Created & Directed by Megan Paradis Hanley
Guide performed by Jackie Rivera
Youth Fellows & Performers Kaia Bestman, Damien Soto
Youth Fellow & Visual Artist Adama Sow
Student Collaborators & Performers (Climate Adventure Ensemble Majors) Lizzy Guglielmone, Maddie Burfitt, Shane Lehr, Stephan Cruz, Hunter Weisner
Sound Design by Charles Coes
Additional Collaborators Antígona González, Ras Badejo, Jonathan Camuzeaux, William Cook, Sophie Craig, Alejandro Fajardo, Sonali McDermid, Clay Moodey, Eva von Schweinitz, Tanasia Swift
A musical epic exploring displacement and identity in the era of climate change through the eyes of the world’s first mammoth-elephant hybrid and the humans confronting rapidly thawing Arctic permafrost.
The world premiere took place July 21-August 6, 2022 at 122CC in Manhattan. It was written by Lanxing Fu, Directed by Nana Dakin, Performed by Jen Anaya, Imani Russell, Izzy Sazak, and Zhanna Zakharova.
Photo by Rio Che, featuring performer Zhanna Zakharova
Ghost Bike is a community-centered performance project that examines the bicycle as a queer expression of vulnerability, an anti-capitalist symbol of freedom, and a powerful tool for climate, transportation, and social justice.
Ghost Bikes are painted white bicycles memorializing neighbors who have died on bikes. NYC cycling deaths continue to climb due to lack of bicycle infrastructure, neglect of existing lanes, and hostility from motorists. The need for bike-friendly streets directly intersects with a vision for a clean-air city in right relationship with land and people.
The project will unfold over several years in various iterations, from pop-up performances to public promenades. Fall 2021 saw the first public events in the project, including a cycling community story-share and an original performance in Prospect Park.
The Ghost Bike project is led by Jackie Rivera and Jem Pickard and includes local cyclists, bicycle builders and mechanics, bicycle advocates and activists, and artists of many disciplines as collaborators.
Photo by Karentonkeron Maresca, featuring performer Ras Badejo.
Piece of Cake is a one-act play by Lanxing Fu, written in 2019 in collaboration with climate scientist Fabian Wagner while in residence at IIASA science research institute in Austria. In Piece of Cake, past, present, and future exist in one space as four generations of a family, spanning 1950 to 2050, gather around a table to share an absurd, abundant, limitless feast. The story traverses a century of humans’ changing relationship to resources and shifting ideas of what it means to have children.
A German translation of Piece of Cake will be performed on October 7, 2023 at the MuTh Theater in Vienna, Austria.
Hike-Play is a two-part project that creates space for individuals to explore their personal relationship to the climate crisis and the land by going on guided walks through the woods. The project consists of a performance and a series of research hikes.
PART 1: PERFORMANCE (Core of Me)
A human and a tree meet each other for coffee, looking for wisdom and comfort in the face of a rapidly changing world. A performance that coexists with a walk in the woods, Core of Me: A Hike-Play explores climate anxiety, the perceived divide between nature and cities, and the hope that might arise from interspecies connection.
Our first work-in-progress performances happened October 5, 2019 at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, NY as part of their annual Open House event. Core of Me was created by Jem Pickard in collaboration with Chris Jensen, Jennifer Telesca, Lanxing Fu, Treya Lam, and Trevor New, and was developed during a STEAMplant residency with Pratt Institute.
PART 2: RESEARCH HIKES
We invite you to unplug, breathe clean air, and commune with the trees for a few hours. Join Lanxing Fu or Jem Pickard (co-directors of Superhero Clubhouse) for a walk in a park or forest around Lenapehoking (New York City and the surrounding areas). We'll talk with you about nature, the climate crisis, and your visions for the future. We'll bring snacks, turn off our phones, and walk at your pace. Afterwards, we'll write a short blog about our experience.
Love Letter To A Seed is
An illustrated letter, invitation, and audio experience
for climate activists, artists, and concerned beings
who are weary
and sometimes hang their heads in despair
and nevertheless
keep on tending
together
This project is released annually: it blooms in the winter (January 20-March 20) and hibernates the rest of the year. The project was led by director Nana Dakin and originally presented in March 2021 as part of Clubbed Thumb's 2020-21 Directing Fellowship.
Perched on the roof of his doghouse with a typewriter and a rare imagination, a dog attempts to adapt after an unusual hurricane washed him out to sea. Created in 2013 in response to Superstorm Sandy, this funny, musical, physical duet explores resilience in the face of climate disasters.
Co-created by Jonathan Camuzeaux, Simón Adinia Hanukai, and Jem Pickard
Written and performed by Jem Pickard
Music composed and performed by Jonathan Camuzeaux
Directed by Simón Adinia Hanukai
Originally Stage Managed by Harry Poster
Original Set Design by Michael Minahan
Original Costume Design by Preesa Adeline Bullington
Original Lighting by Owen Walz
Dramaturgy by Megan McClain
Created in collaboration with climate scientists from Columbia University's Earth Institute and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
Run time: 55min
Click here to download a show program.
THE LIVING STAGE combines horticulture, theatrical design, and community engagement to create recyclable, biodegradable, biodiverse, and edible performance spaces. The NYC version, led by Superhero Clubhouse in partnership with eco-scenographer Tanja Beer, Meltzer Tenent's Association, University Settlement and XDEA Architects, featured a lush living stage situated amidst the urban landscape of the Lower East Side. Created by local seniors and students, the space was inhabited by performances made for and by the community in a weekend festival in August, 2017.
Nine plays that together form a new mythology for the Anthropocene.
URANUS, a play about waste
NEPTUNE, a play about water
MERCURY, a play about poison
SATURN, a play about food
EARTH, a play about people
MARS, a play about mining
VENUS, a play about place
JUPITER, a play about power
PLUTO, no longer a play
Fresh from the hatchery, a young oyster from Brooklyn confronts the legacy of pollution in New York Harbor and her disheartened friends in this hopeful tale of community, ancestry, and resilience.
Illustration by Kristy Caldwell
NEIGHBORS
A musical tale of two trees and two abuellas, all in need of connection on a record-hot summer day in New York City.
THE FAIRWEATHERS
A comedic trunk show about a curmudgeonly clown who just can't make peace with the changing environment.
Created by Danny Gardner, Jamē McCray, and Jem Pickard
Directed by Jem Pickard
Performed by Danny Gardner
Dramaturgy by Jamē McCray
Productions at PS 29 Super Science Saturday 2017 and The High Line Summer Festival 2018