Neworld Theatre, in partnership with the Climate Disaster Project, in association with the SFU School for the Contemporary Arts, and supported by Simon Fraser University, presents the Vancouver premiere of the timely and deeply human work, Eyes of the Beast, on stage June 18 to 21, 2025 at 7:30 pm and June 21 & 22 at 2 pm at the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.

The 90-minute documentary-style theatre production adapts the award-winning journalism of the Climate Disaster Project, bringing to life numerous testimonies from individuals across Canada who climate-related catastrophes have deeply impacted.

“Climate change is not a distant threat; it is an immediate reality impacting our communities,” says Chelsea Haberlin, Artistic Director, Neworld Theatre. “Through this production, I hope that audiences will more acutely understand how important it is to be prepared and how crucial it is to engage in empathy and radical care right at this vital moment. The real impact of climate disasters can lead us to turn inward in an attempt to protect ourselves. We let our fear isolate us, but this work encourages us to, instead, open our arms to those around us – to look around, get involved, pay attention. Love, help, and engage.”

The first hour of Eyes of the Beast offers audience members a striking opportunity to see themselves and their community reflected in a way that’s rarely offered in traditional theatre by centering the voices and stories of everyday people: a mother and daughter in Lytton, BC, forced to flee from a fire in flip-flops, a fishing guide in the Fraser Valley, trying to rescue whatever animals he could find – including an alligator – from a flooded farmland, and an emergency room worker who describes the experience of working in the hospital during the BC heat dome of 2021 as a ‘wartime triage system’.

SFU students bring the real-life testimonials from climate disaster survivors across Western Canada to life on stage. By offering their perspectives and voices throughout the creative process, they have transformed the stories into something powerfully theatrical and immersive. Nature becomes a character through evocative lighting, sound design, and projection. This staging invites audiences to not only listen to the lived impact of climate disasters but to feel it in an embodied, sensory way, making climate change feel immediate, tangible, and real.

Following an intermission, Act 2 of each performance is a facilitated conversation that includes an invited elected official. Audiences are encouraged to share their reactions, express fears or hopes, and connect in a supportive, communal environment. These conversations help break the isolation many people feel around climate anxiety, and invite audiences to imagine what real change might look like — not someday, but right now.

“It’s so easy to feel disheartened about the future,” says Sean Holman, creator of the Climate Disaster Project and Professor of Environmental and Climate Journalism at the University of Victoria in Canada. “But this production teaches us that we can survive that future together because even in the darkness of disaster, the constellations of human dignity and decency can burn all the brighter. It is that light that guides us toward a more just and equitable world.”

In a historic moment for theatre and news reporting, Eyes of the Beast was recently named a finalist in the Canadian Association of Journalists’ (CAJ) 2025 environmental and climate change reporting awards. It’s the first time the CAJ has ever recognized a collaboration between a newsroom and a theatre company.