KAREN MALPEDE

Karen Malpede is author and director of 20 plays and co-founder with George Bartenieff of Theater Three Collaborative. Other Than We follows Extreme Whether (La MaMa, New York, 2018; ArtCop21, Paris, 2015; Theater for the New City, New York, 2014); the shorts Dinner During Yemen (Signature, New York, 2018), Hermes in the Anthropocene: A Dogologue (University of Iowa, Iowa City, 2019; Reed College, Portland, 2015); the revival of her 1995 The Beekeeper’s Daughter (Theater for the New City, New York, 2016), Another Life (RADA, London and Theater for the New City, New York, 2013; Irondale, Brooklyn, 2012; Gerald W. Lynch Theater, New York, 2011), Prophecy (English Theatre Berlin, 2007 (reading); New End Theatre, London, 2008; 4th St. Theater, New York, 2010), the docudrama Iraq: Speaking of War (Culture Project, New York, 2007; CUNY Grad Center, New York, 2006). Her most recent play, Blue Valiant, written for Kathleen Chalfant, will receive a first reading at New York Theater Workshop in April, 2020. She is author of the anthology Plays in Time: The Beekeeper’s Daughter, Prophecy, Another Life, Extreme Whether, lead editor of Acts of War: Iraq and Afghanistan in Seven Plays, and author of an anthology of early plays, A Monster Has Stolen the Sun and Other Plays. Her short plays, fiction, and essays on ecofeminism, climate crisis, a new green Federal Theater, bearing witness, the Iraq war, the U.S. torture program, etc., are published in The Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, Dark Matter, Howlround, Transformations, Torture Magazine, New Theater Quarterly, TDR, New York Times, and elsewhere. She is an adjunct associate professor on the Environmental Justice and Theater faculties at John Jay College, City University of New York; McKnight National Playwrights’ Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts; Vogelstein fellow; and a member of PEN, Dramatists Guild, ASLE (Association for the Study of Literature and Ecology) and of Brooklyn for Peace.

An excerpt from “The Necessity of a New Green Federal Theatre Project,” in HOWLROUND THEATRE COMMONS by Karen Malpede

At worst, we will be confronting massive losses: home, seasonal regularity, and species whose sounds and actions pollinate, fertilize, and please us so. We need to share this grief, not deny it. At best, we will be coming into a new sense of the human as no longer apart from and dominating nature, but relishing, embracing, loving, and enhancing it. We might cease to be so lonely, violent, and grasping, in this new, far more fragile world, for we shall need our connectedness to one another, to creatures, and to other living things. As we become increasingly aware of the sentient lives of plants and animals, our own sentient awareness will become more alert and pleasurable. We will live with less certainty, less stuff, but we will understand, value, and use well what we make and share. An end to “othering” is essential to this vision. The racism and sexism that damage us so will be fully seen and in the seeing, undone, as new, equitable relationships are given shape . . .

What moral choices will we make as the climate continues to narrow the range of options? How can consciousness itself transform within the constrictions of using and having less, but sharing, experiencing, and contemplating more? As the natural world is hurt, as species and habitats die, it is important to recall in words the beauty we know and remember and the possibilities of rewilding someday. It is important not to alienate or shock so much as to touch and move. It is important to increase our capacities for empathy, an evolutionary trait that might be being lost. To open people up to our interrelatedness to ourselves and to all species. These are radical acts for which theatre is uniquely suited.

For more on Karen Malpede’s work, visit: www.theaterthreecollaborative.org

On Wikipedia: Karen Malpede