WhatFinger

Final curtain.

Tragedy: Taxpayer-funded global warming musical has come to an end

By Dan Calabrese ——--September 18, 2014

Global Warming-Energy-Environment | CFP Comments | Reader Friendly | Subscribe | Email Us

I don't know how to break this one to you. There was a chance, my friends - a fleeting chance - for the creative community to capture the hearts of the nation concerning the true greatest threat to humanity. A theater company was on board. Taxpayer money was committed. The inevitable nationwide enthusiasm for the production would surely turn us all into activists for whatever action Democrats deem necessary to deal with global warming.
New taxes. New federal controls on industry. A treaty empowering the United Nations to shut down our factories on the hint of carbon levels not to Thomas Friedman's liking. Whatever it takes. Once Americans saw this play, we'd all get behind it. Heartbreakingly, it was not to be, as the world's first taxpayer-funded global warming musical met with its demise before it even had a chance:
The play, which is actually entitled "The Great Immensity," and was produced by Brooklyn-based theater company The Civilians, Inc. with a $700,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, ended its run early amid a storm of criticism from reviewers and lawmakers alike. It opened a year late, reached just five percent of its anticipated audience and likely fell short of its ambitious goal of informing a new generation about the perceived dangers of man-caused climate change. Plus, it apparently wasn't very good.
"Despite fine performances, the musical mystery tour is an uneasy mix of fact and credulity-stretching fiction. It's neither flora nor fauna," New York Daily News reviewer Joe Dziemianowicz wrote in a review at the time. "[The] songs — whether about a doomed passenger pigeon or storm-wrecked towns — feel shoehorned in and not, pardon the pun, organic." The play, which featured songs and video exploring Americans' relationships to the environment, opened in New York in April with a three-week run before going on a national tour that was supposed to attract 75,000 patrons. But it stalled after a single production in Kansas City, falling short of the lofty goals outlined in a grant proposal. It was envisioned as a chance to create "an experience that would be part investigative journalism and part inventive theater," help the public "better appreciate how science studies the Earth's biosphere" and increase "public awareness, knowledge and engagement with science-related societal issues."
Well that does it. If you can't battle the scorching of the earth with show tunes, I just don't know what to do anymore. You do realize, of course, that one of the reasons liberals insist on keeping the "climate change" nonsense alive is that it's a way for a lots of them to get money. Science grants. Consulting contracts. Even theater grants! If there's a way to get cash through global warming, they'll think of it. Money is no object when we must act now. And what exactly does it mean to act? That's not important. Just do something, and make sure it expands the size, scope and authority of the federal government. That said, if you're going to produce a musical to combat global warming, at least try to not to make it a disaster. Apparently it's fine to exploit the cause for your own financial gain - that's why the cause exists, after all - but it's not OK to embarrass the cause by being horrendously awful. Then again, how does Thomas Friedman get away with it?

Support Canada Free Press

Donate
Subscribe

View Comments
Dan Calabrese——

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.

VIEW Comments

Sponsored