Chantal Bilodeau is a playwright and translator originally from Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal, now based in New York City, the traditional land of the Lenape People. In her capacity as artistic director of the Arts & Climate Initiative, she has been instrumental in getting the theatre and educational communities, as well as audiences in the U.S. and abroad, to engage in climate action through programming that includes live events, talks, workshops, publications, artist convenings, and a distributed theatre festival. She is writing a series of plays that look at the social and environmental changes taking place in the eight Arctic states, which includes Sila (Canada), Forward (Norway), and No More Harveys (U.S.). Awards include the Woodward International Playwriting Prize as well as First Prize in the Earth Matters on Stage Ecodrama Festival and the Uprising National Playwriting Competition. She is the editor of three anthologies of short plays about the climate crisis: Where Is the Hope? (2018), Lighting the Way (2020), and The Future Is Not Fixed (2022). In 2019, she was named one of “8 Trailblazers Who Are Changing the Climate Conversation” by Audubon Magazine.
Julia Levine
Artistic Producer
Julia Levine is a New York-based theatre maker and social worker. She is artistic producer of the Arts & Climate Initiative, where she organizes with Climate Change Theatre Action; collaborates on the Arts & Climate Incubator; produces live events; and helps to cultivate the ever-growing network of climate artists. She has spoken on public panels with sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson and for various productions of Ibsen’s Enemy of the People, about the role of arts in social and climate action. She has organized for environmental justice with the youth climate organization Sunrise Movement, and her original performance work has been seen at Dixon Place, HERE, and Wild Project. Her ten-minute play, Our Food At Work, is published as part of Some Scripts Literary Magazine’s inaugural issue. Julia brings drama therapy into her social work practice to address mental health implications of the climate crisis with individuals and groups. She completed her Master’s of Social Work at Hunter College, and is a member of Climate Psychology Alliance of North America and the North American Drama Therapy Association.
GiGi Buddie
Affiliate Artist
GiGi Buddie is an interdisciplinary artist and climate activist currently based in the Bay Area on the traditional homelands of the Coast Miwok People. She is a graduate of Pomona College and holds a degree in theatre performance and environmental analysis. Both her professional and personal pursuits converge at the intersection of art and climate justice. As an American Indian interdisciplinary artist of Tongva and Mescalero descent, GiGi creates and contributes to art that uplifts marginalized voices, and shares stories of creation, resilience, and beauty from frontline communities. In 2021, she attended the United Nations Climate Summit (COP26) as an NGO delegate for a project that highlighted Indigenous climate leaders from the Global South who were (and still are) championing resilience in the face of the climate crisis. GiGi has worked as a writer and an assistant producer for the Arts and Climate Initiative, as well as an organizer for Climate Change Theatre Action. She has spoken as a panelist on Indigenous sovereignty and climate advocacy panels with A&CI and The Tenure Facility.
Ian Garrett
Board Member
Ian Garrett is a designer, producer, educator, and researcher in the field of sustainability in arts and culture. He is the director of the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts, a think tank on sustainability in arts and culture, and Associate Professor of Ecological Design for Performance at York University, and Graduate Program Director for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies. He maintains a design practice focused on ecology, accessible technologies, and scenography and is producer for Toasterlab, a mixed reality performance collective. Recent work includes I am a Child of… with Keaja d’Dance at the Harbourfront Centre, the exhibition design for World Stage Design 2022 in collaboration with Patrick Rizzotti, and the most recent versions of the locative immersive media projects Parkway Forest Time Machine and STEPS’ From Weeds We Grow both in Toronto Parks. His writing includes Arts, the Environment, and Sustainability for Americans for the Arts; The Carbon Footprint of Theatrical Production in Readings in Performance and Ecology, and Theatre is No Place for a Plant in Landing Stages from the Ashden Directory.
Jennifer Vellenga
Board Member
Jennifer Vellenga is a co-founder of the communication and executive coaching company Voice First World, a co-host of the Speak With Presence podcast, and the former host of the Ditch Your Backup Plan podcast. A former stage director, her notable professional theatre credits include work with director Mark Lamos on the Broadway production of Cymbeline (Lincoln Center), The Blonde, The Brunette & The Vengeful Redhead (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Dallas Theater Center), Compleat Female Stage Beauty (Old Globe Theatres, San Diego), and Antony & Cleopatra (Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis). Jennifer previously served as an assistant professor of theater at the University of Miami, and as the Director of the Theatre Department at Kansas State University where she participated in sustainability initiatives and was a guest speaker for the Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences lecture series. She received her MFA in Directing from Ohio University.