Neworld Theatre's Eyes of the Beast: Climate Disaster Stories wins national PACT Green Award
Professional Association of Canadian Theatres prize recognizes Vancouver company work that addressed 2021 heat wave, flooding, and fires
Eyes of the Beast: Climate Disaster Stories. Photo by Hélène Cyr
A VANCOUVER THEATRE company has just won a national prize for work that creatively addresses the climate crisis.
Neworld Theatre is the recipient of the 2026 PACT Green Award, presented by the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres for its recent project, Eyes of the Beast: Climate Disaster Stories—an innovative hybrid of theatre and journalism. The show took place at the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at SFU Woodward’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts in June of last year. Chelsea Haberlin directed the production.
Developed in partnership with the University of Victoria’s Climate Disaster Project and SFU’s School for Contemporary Arts, Eyes of the Beast drew on real, first-person climate-disaster testimonies about the 2021 climate disaster here.
In the process, UVic student journalists used trauma-informed techniques to co-create survivor testimonies, while Neworld commissioned writers to draw from 88 first-person accounts from people impacted by the deadly heat wave, the Pacific Northwest floods, and the B.C. forest fires that ravaged this area the same year.
“What impressed us most is how the work of our top candidate was truly integrated in many ways; from communications to production, community engagement, to the art itself,” said Laura Caswell, chair of the PACT Environmental Stewardship Committee, in the announcement today.
At each performance, there was a talkback session where the audience was invited to reflect on their own climate disaster experiences and what they think can be done to help survivors. Policy listeners, including city councillors and the a representative of the BC CDC, were invited to speak after each session and reflect in a non-partisan manner on the play.
Brought to life with projections, the show featured re-enacted accounts, layered and uninterrupted. When Stir reviewed the work at its local premiere last year, we wrote: “The testimonies aren’t delivered from behind a podium but instead come alive through gestures and shared rhythm. The language in the interviews is incredibly vivid, full of details you wouldn’t really imagine: skin flaking from heatstroke, the rancid smell of floodwater, living-room furniture bobbing like toys in water. The way the performers carry the words emotionally and physically gives them that much more urgency.”
“Neworld Theatre adopted Climate Action as one of our core values in 2022, and we've worked hard to ensure that our storytelling reflects that priority,” Neworld managing director Alen Dominguez said in the announcement today. “We know that theatre is a powerful tool in fighting the climate crisis we’re in, so we take this responsibility seriously.”
Eyes of the Beast also won silver in the 2025 Canadian Association of Journalists’ CAJ Awards, in the category of environmental and climate change reporting, marking the first time the CAJ has recognized a collaboration between a newsroom and a theatre company.
The runner-up for the award was Mulgrave Road Theatre's Centre for The Arts building project, in Nova Scotia, designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions both during construction and throughout its operational lifespan. 
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