Sunny Drake Productions wins the 2024 PACT Green Award!

TORONTO, ON. February 5, 2024. – Now in its second year, The Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT) awards the 2024 PACT Green Award to Toronto-based Sunny Drake Productions. The award is presented for Sunny Drake Productions’ work CLIMATE CHANGE AND OTHER SMALL TALK, a theatrical podcast produced in association with nine other theatre companies across Canada and around the world, highlighting the climate crisis from a fictional and humorous angle.

An initiative of the PACT Environmental Stewardship Committee, the PACT Green Award honours programming from companies and/or artists that inspires theatre workers and theatregoers to engage with the climate crisis and environmental stewardship in creative and innovative ways. The Green Award was launched in 2023, with Vancouver’s The Only Animal Theatre Society recognized as the inaugural recipient for their work The Artist Brigade. For 2024, the committee has selected one winning project along with one runner-up company project.

PACT Green Award winner, Sunny Drake Productions, specializes in inventive theatre works, of which have been presented in over 60 cities and translated to six languages. Sunny Drake Productions' work reaches a wide range of audiences, from international art festivals attendees, queers in underground warehouses and seniors in regional theatres. Notably, Sunny was the 2019 World Theatre Day Messenger in Canada and was awarded the inaugural Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize in 2019.

The Green Award-winning project, CLIMATE CHANGE AND OTHER SMALL TALK, was produced by Sunny Drake Productions in association with Why Not Theatre. The podcast was produced in partnership with nine theatre companies including Zuppa Theatre (Halifax, NS), Downstage Theatre (Calgary, AB), Electric Company Theatre (Vancouver, BC), Soulpepper Theatre Company (Toronto, ON), Cocodrilo Triste (Chile), Darwin Community Arts (Austrailia), QTP (India), Thespian Muse (Nigeria) and Caudon Arts Centre (Mauritius). Each of these companies worked with local creative teams to create an original audio drama, with the majority of writers coming from Indigenous, Black and Global South communities, each of whom were affected the most by the climate crisis. Each partner company hosted a Listening Party at their respective location with events ranging from community gatherings, debates on the climate crisis, and intimate conversations with Indigenous playwrights. Listeners from around the world can still listen to the audio dramas and utilize discussion guides to host their own listening parties encouraging local participation from the individual to the systemic. Sunny Drake writes: “To get out of the global climate mess we are in will require epic collaboration. It's wonderful to have this award recognise our project's collaboration with 100 artists around the world, and I hope it will inspire others to combine their hearts, minds and creativity in new ways too." This work is the first instalment of Sunny Drake Productions’ Climate Trilogy, continuing to engage with creative and climate justice partners, developing an impact strategy to leverage theatre into real world change.

The Runner-Up for this year’s award is the SKAMpede – MINIMAL WASTE FESTIVAL by Victoria-based companies The Sustainable Fox and Theatre SKAM, presenting the festival with the idea of ‘minimal waste.’ Marking the companies’ fifth year of collaboration, the idea of ‘minimal waste’ aims to reduce how much waste is created in the first place by planning ahead for waste diversion. Waste diversion rates don’t happen by accident. Like any project, it requires the willingness to try and adequate resourcing. Their most recent festival observed more than 98% of festival waste diverted from landfill. As well, The Sustainable Fox integrated a Minimal Waste Performer Guide as part of SKAMpede’s Performer Package, outlining to artists the waste infrastructure that will be available at the festival, offering actionable steps to those participating to be proactive in waste reduction.

Laura Caswell, Chair of the Environmental Stewardship Committee at PACT writes: "There are over twenty people from across the country who represent the environmental stewardship committee at PACT. Recently we have set our mission for this year to amplify and celebrate what IS being done by theatre companies and theatre artist when it comes to Climate Action. We are so excited to have our second annual Green Award to help is do just that. We were so excited to receive applications from all sizes of companies and individuals from across the sector."  

About The Green Award

The Green Award seeks to recognize a winning project under a framework specific to climate action or environmental stewardship, have had a profound and sustainable impact within communities, and can serve as an exemplar for PACT membership of what can be accomplished at the intersection of the arts and environmentalism. The jury evaluating the applications were composed of theatre practitioners engaged with climate activism. In the event of conflicts of interest, jurors recused themselves in select applications, where appropriate.

PACT Members as well as the public are invited to the 2024 PACT Green Award Ceremony, taking place online via Zoom on Friday, February 23rd at 2pm ET / 11am PT The Award includes a $1000 cash award as well as awarding the Green Award Seal, to be displayed digitally online and through future programming.

PACT 2024 Green Award Ceremony
February 23, 2024
2pm ET / 11am PT  
Online via Zoom
Register for the award ceremony

About The Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT)

Since 1979, The Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT) has served as a national arts service organization serving over 160 member companies, of various sizes, from coast to coast to coast. PACT offers programming and professional development for both artistic staff and arts administrators and provides opportunities for arts professionals to connect with their national peers, share knowledge, and discuss topics vital to a thriving theatre landscape. We are highly engaged in federal advocacy, and work with partners in the Department of Canadian Heritage, Office of the Minister of Canadian Heritage, and the Canada Council for the Arts to relay the concerns of our members and provide information used in crafting policy. We negotiate with partner organizations such as Canadian Actors' Equity Association to craft the Canadian Theatre Agreement, as well as with the Associated Designers of Canada and Playwrights' Guild of Canada to formulate various labour agreements. While we work across various territories on Turtle Island, the PACT office is based in Tkaran:to (colonially known as Toronto), which is unceded territories of the Anishinabek, Wendat, Haudenosaunee and the Mississaugas of the Credit.

Media Contact: 

Ainslee Jessiman
Membership & Communications Manager
ainsleej@pact.ca
Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT)
416-595-6455 ext.1519
pact.ca