The Whole Story: Climate Change and the Arts

Sarah Ruhl

SARAH RUHL is an award-winning American playwright, author, essayist, and professor. Her plays include Eurydice, In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (Pulitzer Prize finalist, 2010); The Clean House (Pulitzer Prize finalist, 2005; Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 2004); Passion Play (Pen American Award), Orlando; and Letters from Max (based on her book with poet Max Ritvo). Her plays have been produced on Broadway and across the country as well as internationally, and translated into fourteen languages. Her books include Smile, a memoir, and 100 essays I don’t have time to write. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, a PEN Center Award for mid-career playwrights, a Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, and a MacArthur “genius award” Fellowship. She teaches at the Yale School of Drama and lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Jacinda Ardern

Prime Minister of New Zealand (2017-2023)

The Rt. Hon. Dame Jacinda Ardern Prime Minister of New Zealand (2017-2023); Angelopoulos Global Public Leaders Fellow, Hauser Leader Center for Public Leadership, Senior Fellow, Women and Public Policy Program, Harvard University; Patron, Christchurch Call Foundation; Board Member, The Earthshot Prize, Distinguished Fellow, Conservation International.

The Right Honourable Dame Jacinda Ardern became the Prime Minister of New Zealand at just 37 years of age. During her time in office, she faced the challenges of a live streamed domestic terror attack against New Zealand’s Muslim community, a volcanic eruption and the COVID-19 pandemic. Ms Ardern’s focus on people, kindness and what she has called “pragmatic idealism” saw New Zealand achieve some of the lowest losses of life experienced by any developed nation through the pandemic, the ban of military style semi- automatic weapons in her country, and the creation of the Christchurch Call to Eliminate Violent Extremism Online;, Ms Ardern currently holds the role of the Patron for the Christchurch Call Foundation and the 6th Arnhold Distinguished Fellow for Conservation International.

Ms Ardern is a champion of women’s empowerment. While in office, New Zealand reached 50 percent representation of women in Parliament, and on government appointed boards. She decriminalised abortion, improved pay equity laws and extended paid parental leave to 6 months – all while being only the second woman in the world to have a baby while leading her country.

Ms Ardern is a passionate advocate on climate action and is a board member of The Earthshot Prize, focusing on solutions to climate change and environmental issues.

Ms Ardern is the 2024 Harvard University Angelopoulos Global Public Leaders Fellow, the Hauser Leader, Center for Public Leadership and the Senior Fellow, Women and Public Policy Program.

Ms Ardern holds an Honorary Doctorate from Harvard University.

P. Carl

P. Carl is a Senior Distinguished Artist in Residence, Department of Performing Arts, at Emerson College in Boston and the author of the memoir, Becoming a Man: The Story of a Transition (Simon & Schuster, 2020). His adaptation of the memoir was produced in February of 2024 by the American Repertory Theater of Harvard to critical acclaim — nominated for Outstanding New Script by Boston theater critics. He was the Spring 2020 Anschutz Fellow at Princeton University, awarded a 2017 Art of Change Fellowship from the Ford Foundation, the Berlin Prize fellowship from the American Academy for the Fall of 2018, and the Andrew W. Mellon Creative Research Residency at the University of Washington. His work has been published in the New York Times Magazine, The Boston Globe Magazine, and Lit Hub.

His most recent work in the theater includes dramaturgy with collaborators Claudia Rankine, Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, Melinda Lopez, Deborah Stein, and Suli Holum among many others. He also served as an advisor to the Broadway musical Jagged Little Pill and is the founder of the online theater journal Howlround,

P. Carl received a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature and a Masters in Peace Studies from the University of Notre Dame, and holds a PhD in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society from the University of Minnesota. He was born in Elkhart, Indiana, and now lives in Rhode Island with his spouse, the writer Lynette D’Amico.