Abstracts

Directing Mentoring Session4: Mentorship in the Intersection of Queerness, Climate Change, & Theatre

by Benjamin Stasny

Mentoring Session4 is a five-minute play written by Peterson Toscano. I directed it as part of a larger play I helped conceptualize titled Climate Cabaret which opened the University of Colorado Boulder, Department of Theatre & Dance’s 2021-2022 theatrical season. In the play, two queer characters are discussing the etymology of the word faggot as it relates to both queerness and climate change in a post-climate apocalypse future. The play is as much about queerness and queer mentorship as it is about climate change. In this narrative research analysis, I highlight three distinct queer mentoring tactics I used to build community with the actors in Mentoring Session #4. I situate the tactics in past queer mentoring relationships where I was the mentee. I am determined to interrogate why queerness and climate change worked in the context of this show and how queer mentoring tactics may be used to craft optimistic futures on both queer equality and climate justice more broadly.