THE NEXT FOREVER: NEW STORIES FOR A CHANGING PLANET
Proposals for The Next Forever Commissions will be accepted from December 11, 2024 – January 15, 2025
The Next Forever is a partnership of The Civilians with Princeton University’s High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) and Lewis Center for the Arts, created to explore how dynamic storytelling can engage vital environmental subjects and provide the vision and inspiration we need to navigate the challenges of our planet’s future — the “next forever.”
A multi-faceted initiative, The Next Forever comprises an ongoing series of public events and performances, an undergraduate class on narrative and the environment, and a competitive commission-and-residency program for theater makers.
As the author and activist Naomi Klein has observed, the stories we tell ourselves about how we live in the world are foundational to the environmental emergencies we now confront — and to our chances of overcoming them. With funding provided by Princeton University, The Next Forever initiative will award two commissions to theater makers to create work that offers new visions for how we relate to the world around us. Additionally, the program provides the artists with the opportunity to engage over the academic year with Princeton faculty working in relevant fields.
HMEI functions as a vibrant central resource for faculty, postdocs, students, alumni, and others with an interest in environmental topics and research. Through their relationship to HMEI and the larger Princeton community, awardees will have access to a cross-disciplinary range of knowledge and ideas—of scientists, conservation psychologists, historians, policy and communications experts, and others— to support the artists, as they pursue a rigorous inquiry into their subject matter. The artists can be playwrights, composers, directors, performers, live art creators, designers, performance artists—anyone who is a generative creator of story-centered theater.
We believe that the scope and complexity of the present environmental crises ask all of us to think beyond business as usual. The Next Forever is an invitation to artists who are eager to break out of the writing studio or the rehearsal room and develop new work in conversation with leading scholars and thinkers. We are soliciting commission applications that prioritize narrative, require some kind of research process, and engage environmental subject matter on topics such as climate change, biodiversity, food security, urban systems, migration environmental justice, etc. Applicants are by no means limited to the examples in this list. We are interested in any and all possibilities.