Big Green
Theater
★ What
Big Green Theater is a free theater and environmental justice program for public elementary school students in Bushwick and Ridgewood. Through playwriting, performance, collaboration, and hands-on creative activities, students explore ideas about climate, community, and the world around them. They create original plays together and along the way build confidence, express their ideas, and work alongside teaching artists, performers, and designers to bring their stories to life on stage.
★ Program IN Action
From the classroom to the stage, students experience an educational and creative immersion that includes playwriting, environmental justice, and performance. The program is composed of creative workshops, field trips, and conversations with scientists and activists. Students develop their own original plays together; writing, rehearsing, and staging work with the support of adult theater professionals. The shows are made using exclusively sustainable materials and stage-craft, culminating in free public productions at their schools.
Big Green Theater meets a critical need for arts education in Bushwick and Ridgewood while giving students tools to think critically about the world they are inheriting. It encourages imagination, shared problem-solving, and self-expression, leaving a lasting mark not only on the young people involved, but on their families, classrooms, and communities.
Big Green Theater is administered by our Education Director, Cassandra Brown, and run by Lead Teaching Artists Nadia Sepsenwol and Paige Gilbert. The program regularly works with BK ROT and Newtown Creek Alliance. Big Green Theater was initially conceived by Bushwick Starr co-founders Noel Allain and Sue Kessler. The program was developed and run in partnership with Jeremy Pickard and eco-theater collective Superhero Clubhouse from 2010-2020.
Lead Teaching Artists Nadia Sepsenwol & Paige Gilbert
Assistant Teaching Artist Justin Allen
Intern/BGT Support Staff Jakholbi Murry
Adult Actor Hunter Bryant
Adult Actor Tori Lassman
Co-Lead Designer Federica Borlenghi
Co-Lead Designer Clara Wiest
Assistant Designer Eleanor Scott
Assistant Designer Sam DeBell
Composer/Musician Tyreek McDole
DOE Teacher at PS 106 Cynthia Padro
Principal Magaly Moncayo
DOE Teachers at PS 75 Arvetta Drumgold & Kim Smith Riley
Principal Deborah Augustin
Assistant Principal Brenda Marshall
Big Green Theater is an annual program that takes place during both the Fall and Spring school semesters. Over time, the program has generated dozens of original student-written plays that trace shifting environmental issues, community stories and current events. Past plays, program materials, and archival documentation can be explored in the BGT Archive.
We welcome your involvement. Support for Big Green Theater can take many forms, from teaching in the classroom, to collaborating with students to build the world of each production through sets, costumes, music and performance. To learn more, email cassandra@thebushwickstarr.org.
Big Green Theater is made possible through the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs' Cultural After School Adventures (CASA) Program and New York City Council members Jennifer Gutierrez and Sandy Nurse, The Revada Foundation of the Logan Family, and our community of supporters.
*This activity is not sponsored or endorsed by the New York City Department of Education or the City of New York.
