FW: Columbus Ledger: Climate change musical opens in Atlanta

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From: Mark Woodall <woodal...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2025 6:21 AM
Subject: Columbus Ledger: Climate change musical opens in Atlanta

 

OUR PLANET Climate crisis musical comes to Atlanta. ‘Dear Everything’ is for everyone 

 

By Kala Hunter Updated September 16, 2025 10:52 AM 

 

  After five years of script writing, rehearsal, mediums and fighting a cast and crew with fervor that the moment beckons, the youth climate musical “Dear Everything” will make its first stop in Atlanta on Sept. 25, a first in the four-city tour. Tony Award-winning playwright V (formerly Eve Ensler), writer of “The Vagina Monologues,” has been devoted to ending violence against women and supporting LGBTQ rights. Now she has moved into the climate space. V, who now lives in upstate New York among the trees rather than skyscrapers, realized she needed to create something that supports young people because they are “terrified” by the climate crisis. 

 

  “How can we tell a story that shows young people who have a sense of the future in their bodies and (at the same time) older people are just trying to survive?” V posed to the Ledger-Enquirer. “It would look like where young voices are speaking what they feel.” She created what she called a “narrated storytelling concert” that is an “attempt to wake people’s hearts up.” “Dear Everything” is about the complex emotions intertwined in the climate crisis and Gen Z calling on adults to respond to what V calls the most pressing issue of our day. 

 

She’s not alone. Renowned biologist Sir David Attenborough calls climate change “the biggest threat to security humans have faced,” Bill Nye says climate change is “the most serious crisis mankind has ever faced” and the World Health Organization called it “the single biggest threat to humanity.” But what these scientists and research organizations haven’t done is motivate a movement and express the urgency through song and script. That’s what V is venturing to do. “The show is more than a musical, it’s an experience,” said Maya Penn, a prolific climate communicator and youth mentor based in the Atlanta area.

 

 “Dear Everything” will be at The Eastern on Sept. 25.  Penn is leading the Youth Climate Council of “Dear Everything,” a cohort of climate activists spreading the word about the production and getting local nonprofits in each city involved in the four-city tour. “The young people are driving the show,” Vsaid. Penn, who has youth climate activist on her resume and given TED Talks about environmental issues, attended the premiere this past January in New York and said the music is “on another level” and that she has “genuinely never seen anything like it.” 

 

Careful to not give too much away, Penn told the Ledger-Enquirer there is a mother-daughter relationship in the story and a farmer who is facing extreme weather conditions. Dear Everything’s star-studded cast and crew The cast, which includes Crystal Monee Hall, YDE, Paravi, Luke Ferrari, Michael Williams, Brittany Campbell, Javier Muñoz, Terence Archie, Laurel Harris and Ben Thompson, is intergenerational. The production team includes musical lyricist Justin Tranter, who has worked with Selena Gomez, Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande and Dua Lipa. V will narrate the show in Atlanta, which will premiere at The Eastern on Sept. 25 at 7:30 pm. The venue can hold over 2,000 people.

 

 Diane Paulus, who directs the show, is a professor of the practice of theater at Harvard University and the Terrie and Bradley Bloom artistic director of the American Repertory Theater. Each show will have a local youth choir incorporated into the audience, according to Penn. Atlanta will have the Atlanta Music Project. It isn’t just for people in the climate movement, Penn emphasized, though it will “reinvigorate” those in the environmental space who have become desensitized or exhausted by the issues. “This is for young people who are scared of what’s happening to the planet, (who) feel hopeless,” she said. “This is for artists and creatives and musical theater enthusiasts. This is for farmers and firefighters and nurses and people who are on the front lines of climate change. This is for adults who have, you know, really kind of lost their spark in the movement.”

 

 V wants to make this show available to everyone, sympathizing with the cost of going to the theater. “To take your kids to a show in New York is a $1,000 experience,” she said. “Theater has become so elitist and I cannot bear how few people get to see it.” Because of that, she’s reserved seats for people who simply reach out and ask, especially nurses, firefighters, or anyone who can’t afford the show. She said she’s heard from those who want to see the show by emailing the team. “If there are students at Columbus State University who want to go, we’ll get them tickets,” she said. Student discounts are also available. There are also VIP — Very Important Planet — higher tier tickets. V hopes her show cuts through the polarized tension. “Art breaks through binaries and opens minds and hearts,” she said. “Every way I’ve been changed in my life it’s been through art. It’s not ‘you’re right, you’re wrong’, it’s ‘lets tell a story that everyone is familiar with and open your heart and get you to think about it differently.” More ticket information can be found on the ”Dear Everything” website.

Read more at: https://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/environment/article312123001.html#storylink=cpy