To make a sustainable Tempest we needed to avoid buying new items, keep our carbon footprint low by minimising deliveries, and adapt and reuse props as much as possible.

We're using the Theatre Green Book – a set of instructions for making theatre more green, and the first piece of advice in the Green Book is to design something out if we don’t need it, after that it’s about using items we already have

We started the props that we needed, looking first in our Prop Store and then around our own buildings. We found unwanted barrels and containers ready for the skip outside the workshop and plenty to use from past shows, including:

• A prop piano, picture used top in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2016) and below in The Tempest
• The tarpaulin used in 2022's All’s Well That Ends Well
• Curtains from O, Island! at The Other Place last year

Reusing rubbish

The Tempest is set on an island, surrounded by sea, so collecting items that had been left on the beach or washed up seemed like a good way to source some more props.

We organised a prop litter pick on the beaches of Weston-super-Mare, along with contacting someone who organises beach litter picks, and collected many donated things, sourcing props and helping to clean up the beach at the same time.

We made contact with people who collect buoys and other discarded fishing items from the coast, and they helped to supply us with these and under sea-themed props.

We also worked with litter picking groups locally. The group Rubbish Friends found some interesting items on the streets of Stratford and brought them to the prop shop, where we washed and sanitised these items to be used.