The Boycott Will Benefit Intervale Farmers
September 8, 2011, page 15.....

“Al Gore on crack. With red hair. And a uterus.” That’s how the Anchorage Times described Charlotte actor and climate activist Kathryn Blume in her solo show, The Boycott – the story of the First Lady of the United States launching a nationwide sex strike to combat global warming.  
Blume loves the comparison. “Climate change is an incredibly scary thing. We’ve seen firsthand from Hurricane Irene how powerful the impacts can be. But,” she continues, “we don’t have to just fold over from fear. And a really funny story can be both an incredibly cathartic experience and inspire people to take powerful action.”
Blume will be performing The Boycott at Off Center for the Dramatic Arts, 294 North Winooski Avenue, Burlington, at 8 p.m. on Thursday, September 22, through Saturday, September 24. The performances will benefit the Intervale farmers affected by flooding from Hurricane Irene and are sponsored by the climate action group 350VT. The performance on Saturday, September 24, is also an official event of “Moving Planet,” 350.org’s international day of climate action. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased from the Off Center website at offcentervt.com.
Intervale farms, a collection of farm businesses that lease land from Burlington’s nonprofit Intervale Center, suffered a devastating flood last week as a result of Hurricane Irene. This late summer flooding came after record high water levels last spring destroyed crops on the 135 cultivated acres of land that lie along the Winooski River.
On the morning after Irene, farmers, volunteers and Intervale Center staff rushed to salvage as many crops as possible before the Winooski River crested again. Although some food was harvested and stored, much of the produce planned for the late summer and fall markets was destroyed. 
The Intervale Center has established a fund to help farmers offset crop losses and repair damage from the impact of Hurricane Irene. Donations to the Intervale Center Farmers’ Recovery Fund can be mailed to the Intervale Center, 180 Intervale Road, Burlington, VT 05401. 
Off Center for the Dramatic Arts is a not-for-profit intimate black box venue located in the heart of Burlington’s Old North End. The primary mission of Off Center is to serve as an affordable professional incubator space for local culture and to aid and assist fellow nonprofits in any way possible. “We are very excited to partner with Kathryn Blume and 350VT for this terrific show,” said Off Center co-founder Paul Schnabel.  “It’s great that we can step up and help support our local farmers. Farmers feed our bodies the way theater feeds our souls, and we all need to stand up for each other in times of crisis.”
David Stember, 350VT co-founder, concurs with Schnabel about the power of theater.  “Our stories tell us who we are and give us a vision of who we want to be,” says Stember.  “A performance like Kathryn Blume’s can entertain people while infusing them with hope and possibility.  Theater is part of how we build a powerful climate movement.”
Blume first conceived of The Boycott following her experience as co-founder of the Lysistrata Project, an international peace event on March 3, 2003, which saw over 1,000 simultaneous readings of the ancient Greek anti-war comedy Lysistrata in 59 countries and all 50 U.S. states – all in protest of the U.S.’s impending war on Iraq.
With support from individual donors, green companies such as Seventh Generation and GroSolar, and a surprise check from the late film and food legend Paul Newman, she produced an off-Broadway run of The Boycott and toured it to over 20 cities in the U.S., Canada and Europe, including Copenhagen during the 2009 UN climate talks.
The Boycott also got attention from Natural Resources Defense Council Executive Director Peter Lehner, who says of the show:
“It’s hard to find humor in global warming but Kathryn Blume manages to do it in The Boycott. She engages, in an entertaining way, that tough question of ‘how can what I do make a difference to a global problem?’ And critically, she makes us come out of our denial and confront this planet’s climate crisis with a sense of optimism and hope.”

For more information on The Boycott, visit theboycottplay.com.  

Information for this article was provided by Off Center for the Dramatic Arts and Kathryn Blume and the Intervale Center website.