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The Song of the Reeds: rewilding drama
CreativeUEA
'Song of the Reeds' is an ongoing project that extends drama’s dialogue with urgent issues of conservation.
Exploring how playwriting can engage with climate change and our perception of nature, Dramatist and Professor of Scriptwriting Steve Waters research has focused on creatively examining the Wicken Fen and Strumpshaw Fen nature reserves in East Anglia. The findings into the founding figures and moments in the ecology of the region inspire and emerge as innovative projects that find new ways in which drama and conservation might speak to each other.
Project: Nature. Crisis. Drama.
In 2022, ‘Nature. Crisis. Drama.’, a two-day symposium in Norwich, in partnership with Young Norfolk Arts Collective and the Norwich Arts Centre, brought together writers, academics, musicians, performers and conservationists to look at further ways of responding to the crisis in the natural world through the arts. Prof Waters performed extracts from his monologue Rothschild’s Walk, which explored how Charles Rothschild, scion of the famous banking family, is a forgotten pioneer of the nature reserve.
Following this, panel discussions featured experts from UEA and organisations and individuals who have contributed to the research - including Tangled Feet, the RSPB and the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust. Conversation focused on dramatising species loss and finding new audiences for nature writing. Poets, critics, musicians and other collaborators also shared their perspectives on the day, which culminated with a site-specific theatre performance of Waters’ piece Voices from the Reeds.
‘Dodo, Phoenix, Butterfly: Dramatising the Climate Crisis’ saw the performance of three new works by Prof Waters, written in response to original research about the climate crisis. These scenarios of collapse and renewal examined species extinction, re-wilding and rising sea levels. The performances were followed by a dialogue between the writers, actors and the audience.
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UEA Symposium - Song of the Reeds: Rewilding Drama
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Nature. Crisis. Drama.
Research trip into the Broads. Left to right: Kay Michael, Lucy Farrant, Steve Waters and local farmer.
Research trip into the Broads. Left to right: Kay Michael, Lucy Farrant, Steve Waters and local farmer.
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Student actors from East Norfolk
Sixth Form College perform The Race Against Time at RSPB Strumpshaw Fen
Photography by William Fielding and Tash Cordeaux
Sixth Form College perform The Race Against Time at RSPB Strumpshaw Fen
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Student actors from East Norfolk
Sixth Form College perform The Race Against Time at RSPB Strumpshaw Fen
Photography by William Fielding and Tash Cordeaux
Sixth Form College perform The Race Against Time at RSPB Strumpshaw Fen
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Recording ‘Song of the Reeds’ - Boz Temple-Morris with Sophie Okonedo and Mark Rylance
Recording ‘Song of the Reeds’ - Boz Temple-Morris with Sophie Okonedo and Mark Rylance
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Crew photo for new BBC Radio 4 drama by Prof Steve Waters - ‘Song of the Reeds’
Crew photo for new BBC Radio 4 drama by Prof Steve Waters - ‘Song of the Reeds’
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Recording Episode 1 ‘Swallowtail’ at Strumpshaw Fen
Recording Episode 1 ‘Swallowtail’ at Strumpshaw Fen
Creativity
‘Song of the Reeds’ is a constant attempt to reveal the hidden ethics of the way we live. It explores climate change through changing the conditions for making drama, developing relationships with non-theatrical venues and devising new theatre productions and companies.
'Song of the Reed' - Radio Drama
In 2021 a four-part radio drama for Radio 4 was written by Prof Steve Waters in collaboration with Holy Mountain. This was broadcast over the year at equinoxes and solstices, providing a near documentary account of conservation through the seasons.
‘The Race Against Time’ - Youth Project
A collaboration between the University of East Anglia and East Norfolk Sixth Form College saw young adults work with experts from the College and the University to produce a new site-specific performance about climate change at RSPB Strumpshaw Fen, Norfolk. The project was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
Read more: Dramatizing Climate Change: An Oral History
'Voices from the Reeds' - short films
Collaborating with partners, including the East Anglian Film Archive (EAFA) and Norfolk Record Office, Prof Waters wrote alternative voice-overs to films from EAFA’s collection representing East Anglia’s broads. He also shared a new monologue written especially for The Song of the Reeds.
Watch these narrated archive films that explore the region’s unique natural heritage, offering a glimpse of the unseen lives of flora and fauna that call East Anglia’s natural habitats their home.
'Murmurations' - theatre
A collaboration with Tangled Feet, this site-specific play focused on the centrality of nature, as we extricate ourselves from the pandemic.
The play used innovative headphone-based drama, entertaining physical theatre and highly visual methods to reveal the potential of reserves as drama venues. It synthesised the experiences and concerns emerging from the research, putting the reserves and their work into a larger public domain, animating their predicament in a mobilising fashion and modelling how theatre can be made in non-theatrical and non-urban settings.
Collaboration
The innovative activities at the heart of 'The Song of the Reeds' include community-based projects, unique public engagement events and a final professional project. All of them exemplify how drama can be used within conservation, and the importance of connecting the dots between artistic practice, academic research and local communities.
Alongside the aforementioned partners, the creative work has also supported Norfolk Heritage Open Days. These events cover the stories, sites, places and people that traditional history overlooks.
Steve Waters, UEA Professor of Scriptwriting
Professor Steve Waters is a political dramatist who focuses on environmental questions. His work has won many awards. World Music was joint winner of the Meyer-Whitworth Award. Fall of the Shah was runner-up to Best Drama Podcast of 2019 by British Podcasting Awards. The Contingency Plan, a diptych of two plays about climate change, was shortlisted for the John Whiting Award.
Prof Waters teaches undergraduates and postgraduates at the School of Literature, Drama & Creative Writing at UEA. He was co-convenor of the Writing and Science Project and now also convenes the MA in Creative Writing: Scriptwriting programme and supervises PhD students. Teaching and writing have always been linked in his work.
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