Scranton Reporter

The Broadway Green Alliance, an industry-wide initiative founded in 2008 to educate and encourage the theatre community to implement environmentally friendlier practices, featured The University of Scranton Players in its community spotlight in the spring semester.

The sustainability efforts of the University Players were highlighted through the Broadway Green Alliance social media network, which includes Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The post included a quote from University student Samantha Burton, a theatre major from Jamesville, New York, and the University’s student Green Captain for the Alliance, which provides Captains at colleges and universities with resources for greening collegiate theatre productions.

“The theatre program at The University of Scranton has incorporated sustainable practices even before the current trend. Faculty, guest artists and students have long been encouraged to reuse scenic elements and incorporate a ‘trash into treasure’ philosophy of scenic, costume and prop décor, and have tried to institute sustainable best practices in all production areas,” said Burton in the social media post.

The University Players have incorporated green initiatives into their productions for more than two decades. Early sustainable theatre examples include the program’s inventive reuse of cardboard carpet tubing and discarded carpet to create life-like trees for the setting of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” production in 2002. The “trees” were subsequently “harvested” to create a log fishing cabin for the Player’s 2002 production of “The Foreigner.” Rich Larsen, who had served as director of the Theatre Program at Scranton for many years, received the University’s Provost’s Award in 2007 for Excellence in Integrating Sustainability in the Curriculum in recognition of the Theatre Program’s many green initiatives.

Sustainability efforts continue at the University today. Scranton is among just 100 colleges with an active College Green Captain Program.

The University of Scranton Players is an academic Theatre Program that brings exceptional theatre to Northeastern Pennsylvania every season. The Players’ productions feature University of Scranton students in a mix of classical and contemporary works under the direction and mentorship of award-winning faculty and guest artists.

Original source can be found here.