Saving the Planet, one play at a time...

Sevenoaks Shakespeare has been bringing the works of Shakespeare to life in Sevenoaks and the surrounding area for 25 years. This year promises to be our busiest yet, with performances at three different outdoor venues.

 

The challenges ahead are exciting, and as part of our development we have committed to carefully examining our environmental impact. During our 2024 season, we are developing and trialling a practice of environmental sustainability in all of our work. While we have always had this as a background focus, from now on we will be bringing this to the fore of our work. Our recent production of ‘Midsummer’ was a pilot scheme for this, we had initially committed to at least 50% of production materials had a previous life and at least 50% of used materials would go on to a future life beyond the show.  This target was met and exceeded and additionally we were able to trial a principally online programme and we were again delighted with the response we got to that. It is something we will continue to look at in the future.

 

We are committed to work towards the standards of the Theatre Green Book, which is an initiative by the whole of the theatre community to work in more sustainable ways. We have continued to expand and explore this as we prepared for ‘As You Like It’ and from August 2024 onwards, it will be standard practice on all future productions. It is part of our ongoing commitment to create theatre that uses less resources, recycles more, and controls energy usage in all aspects of our productions.

 

Although it is a new venture for us, we believe that we are the first non-West End company to partake in the Theatre Green Book process.

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To that end we are working on two further exciting developments. We have agreed with The Archbishop's Palace in Otford, where we performed Midsummer, to sponsor one of their soon to be planted heritage fruit trees ( a Conference Pear) which should happen in the next few weeks.

 

We are also negotiating with Sevenoaks Council to plant a Sevenoaks Shakespeare oak tree somewhere in the centre of Sevenoaks. These two ventures will not only help to make both Sevenoaks and Otford greener and more attractive places to live in and visit they will help with the carbon offsetting for our productions.

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We are constantly looking for new ways to give back to our environment and make out theatre productions more sustainable and environmentally friendly and we hope to be able to bring you more exciting news soon.