PMA Associate Professor Beth F. Milles’ has been invited to participate in the Tofte Lake Center Residency in Ely, Minnesota in June to collaborate with playwright Carson Kreitzer on a new work entitled "TRASH: A circumnavigation."
“TRASH is a solo piece about climate refuse and justice. TRASH is stratospheric (atmospheric) act of reflection, an invitation for civic engagement- illuminating waste – as a warning (and a nourishment) -- a story about precarity. We live in a moment of precarity. Global. Personal. TRASH is an evocation. An invocation. How do we assess this moment to move forward.”
Milles spoke about how the genesis of this collaboration started in 2021 while working with Kreitzer on a show called TIMEBOMB, a climate-crisis play commissioned by the American Repertory Theatre. “We have continued to discuss the piece and the opportunities it offered for further collaboration on this imperative subject and at this extreme moment.” Milles and Kreitzer have worked together previously on SELF DEFENSE (2004) and FLESH AND THE DESERT(2007.)
“Carson is well-regarded as a dramatist with a prodigious wit and razor-sharp insight. She is a humanist with a deep conscience and ferocity of vision. Carson first traveled the Arctic on an international grant to research TIMEBOMB.”
To her shock, at just about every landing, she found plastic trash washed up on the shore. There was a giant bag on deck; every time she returned to the ship, she added to it. By the time she sailed home, it was full. Engaging in this simple, plain, holy, abundantly necessary, physical act of remediation landed her back in her body. After the sail, something clicked, and she knew she wanted to write a direct response to the accumulation of trash juxtaposed with our natural environment.
“Carson and I began to collaborate on [TRASH: A circumnavigation] in February, which is conceived as a solo work. Carson has written the initial stories in journal form and we are working together dramaturgically, to forge them as an event.”
Read more about the Tofte Lake Center Residences.
