Feel the power of the ocean through an immersive image-and-sound design that envelops the audience in an awe-inspiring underwater world.

Linking below-the-surface mystery with above-the-surface climate issues, the Connecticut premiere of Ocean Filibuster puts audiences in the middle of a human/ocean showdown. “The Ocean” gets the chance to tell its side of the story in this new music theater experience from Assistant Professor of Theater Katie Pearl’s Obie Award-winning company PearlDamour in collaboration with the Center for the Arts, the Wesleyan Theater Department, the College of the Environment, and the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life.

Using large-scale projection, songs, science, and stand-up, Ocean Filibuster explores the intimate, critical relationship between humans and the ocean in an epic battle of wits and wills, smarts and sass, and facts and anthropocentric fiction. Set in a future Global Senate, performer Jenn Kidwell embodies two rivals: “Mr. Majority”—who introduces a bill to end the ocean as we know it—and “The Ocean,” arriving in human form to filibuster the bill. Originally commissioned by American Repertory Theater in collaboration with Harvard University’s Center for the Environment, Ocean Filibuster plunges the audience into the most heated debate of our time.

The May 6th matinee showing will include Rhea Drozdenko, CRC’s River Steward in CT, in a talkback after the show alongside the director and an actor. Rhea will talk about how this play’s themes tie into the Connecticut River, and the real issues behind the show’s Mini-Lab activities.

This event is part of the Ocean Filibuster: Art and Action series, a semester of art and activism, science and storytelling—building to the Connecticut premiere performance of PearlDamour’s Ocean Filibuster in the CFA Theater on May 4–6, 2023. For more information and related events, visit www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/ocean.

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE

$25 for the general public