Young People from all over the World Write to the Future

In this poetic and thought-provoking performance, the audience meets, among many others, Agnes, who climbs down from a tree where she lived for two years. She is amazed by how people live their lives down on earth. She meets Robert, a writer waiting for a hurricane that never comes, and together they wander through a changing world in search of stories of our time.

The stories on which the play is based are told by artists, gardeners, farmers, students, fishermen and activists from, among others, the USA, India, Denmark, Kenya, Qatar, Mexico, Brazil, Serbia, Singapore, Palestine and Thailand. All the stories are to be archived for 1,000 years.

“We have met 77 young people for Zoom conversations where they were able to freely talk about how it feels to be young and to know that we are in the middle of a climate crisis. I have then woven together a selection of the stories into a play with lots of humor and magical thinking. This project, which is one of the largest storytelling projects ever at Dramaten, has connected climate activists on several continents who were able to create new networks,” says director Jacob Hirdwall.

Jacob Hirdwall's performance We Hear You—Greta Thunberg's speeches at Dramaten in 2020 was the starting point for the international project We Hear You – A Climate Archive of which the play is a part. Within the framework of the project, selected stories have been performed in many places, including at the Kennedy Center and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, at COP27 in Sharm El Sheik and at COP28 in Dubai.

Casting: Filip Alexanderson, Anna Björk, Elin Klinga, Christopher Lehmann, Razmus Nyström, Tina Pour-Davoy, Nina Zanjani and nine interns from Kulturama. Choreography: Johanna Lindh. Music: Fredrik Söderberg.

The day after the premiere, Dramaten will host a conversation with some of the authors of the stories that are included in the play. Elia Ilyess El Kortbi from Ukraine, Zayna Zubair from Great Britain/Sri Lanka and Clara Botto from Brazil will share their experiences of organizing and storytelling on the front lines of the climate crisis. Moderators: Jacob Hirdwall and Caitlin Nasema Cassidy, New York based theater director and producer. On April 26, at 3.30 pm in the Dramaten bar. The talk will be in English.

We Hear You—A Climate Archive is a collaboration between Dramaten, The Earth Commons—Georgetown University's Institute for Environment and Sustainability, the Swedish Embassy in Washington and The Lab: Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University in Washington. We Hear You—A Climate Archive is co-conceived by Caitlin Nasema Cassidy and Jacob Hirdwall. The Swedish Cultural Council and the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation also support the project. Read more here: aclimatearchive.com