Superhero Clubhouse

Contributing Writers: Jem Pickard and Lani Fu 

A Note from the Artists in Residence

Hello campers! Lani and Jem here, we’re among Usdan’s newest Artists in Residence. We can’t wait to share space and create art with you this summer and next. We co-direct Superhero Clubhouse, an eco-theater company based in New York City. You can learn more about us here. 

What’s eco-theater?

Eco-theater means we make original performances focused on climate justice. We take complex environmental issues and turn them into imaginative, thought-provoking, hopeful stories. Our performances happen indoors and outdoors, in theaters and schools, on hiking trails and street corners. Our work is made collaboratively, with people of different ages, backgrounds, and knowledge bases, from scientists to sculptors to students. Our goal is to use the tools of theater-making to blueprint a better world, so that we can practice in the rehearsal room the skills we need in society to bring about a just, thriving future. 

We like to combine different genres: sometimes our plays feel like sci-fi, other times like music theater, epic poems, dance, or– in the case of our project at Usdan– games! What happens if we mash-up a theater experience, an interactive game experience, and climate change? That’s what we’ll be exploring while in residence at Usdan. Think: escape room meets Dungeons & Dragons meets eco-theater. 

How can students get involved?

To develop this game project, we’re teaching a course at Usdan called Climate Adventure Ensemble, in which you (the students) will help us create an imaginary world filled with original characters. Then, using mechanics from role-playing games, cooperative board games, and escape rooms, we’ll construct an adventure experience that takes place on different parts of Usdan’s wooded campus. The audience will journey through our story, solving puzzles, interacting with characters, and making decisions that impact the future of the world. 

We love collaborating with young people, and hope you’ll sign up for our course. You don’t need to be in a theater Major or Minor to participate! Are you interested in games? Comics or design? Creative writing? Dance or music? Nature or gardening? Your skills and knowledge are so valuable to our project! All are welcome and encouraged to join. You can signup for our class by enrolling or submitting a schedule change request via the buttons below.

See you around Usdan this summer! And until then, happy spring! 

– Jem Pickard and Lani Fu, co-directors of Superhero Clubhouse and Usdan Artists in Residence

Class Description

CLIMATE ADVENTURE ENSEMBLE: A THEATRICAL GAME PROJECT (Major, 4A Session, Grades 6 – 12)

In this interdisciplinary class, students create a theatrical journey and immersive game experience inspired by Usdan’s forest ecosystem and changing climate. The nooks and crannies of the Usdan campus transform into a mythical world invented by students in collaboration with guest artists from Superhero Clubhouse, an NYC-based eco-theater organization. Students participate in world-building and storytelling activities and have the opportunity to write, design, perform, and/or create art as it aligns with their interests and the needs of the project. The course culminates in a performance event for audience members, who are guided on different quests, encountering characters facing big problems similar to our own. It’s up to us to find the clues and solve the puzzles that unlock a thriving future.

To read more about other classes, visit our Classes website page. 

About Superhero Clubhouse

Lanxing (Lani) Fu and Jem Pickard

Lanxing (Lani) Fu and Jem Pickard co-direct Superhero Clubhouse, creating theater to enact climate and environmental justice, cultivate hope, and inspire a thriving future. We make original performances and offer creative resources for communities and collaborators from all walks of life: students, scientists, artists, organizers, teachers, policy-makers, and more. Our artistic processes bring people together across differences and disciplines to model a regenerative society in response to the climate crisis. Our work is joyfully rooted in ecological knowledge, relationship to the land, and imagination as a powerful tool of future-building. 

Lani is a Chinese-American writer, performer, and educator who currently teaches Advanced Playwriting at Skidmore College. Her play Mammelephant, about thawing Arctic permafrost and the resurrection of the Wooly Mammoth, premiered in 2022 at 122CC directed by Nana Dakin. Her play Piece of Cake, written in response to a climate scientist’s research on population and climate change, was created while in residence at IIASA research institute in Austria. Her essays "Building Possibility in the Age of Climate Change" and "The Birth of a Climate Commons" are published on HowlRound. She has been a workshop facilitator and speaker with The New School, Asian American Arts Alliance, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, CESTEMER, and more. She was a member of TCG's 2019 Conference Committee on Climate and was one of TCG’s 2020 Rising Leaders of Color.

Jem Pickard is a director, writer, and creative producer who founded Superhero Clubhouse in 2007 as a homebase for theatrical experimentation around environmental crises. Over the past 15 years Jem has co-created dozens of works of eco-theater including The Planet Plays, Flying Ace and the Storm of the Century!, Salty Folk: An Oyster Musical, and Core of Me: A Hike-Play. From 2009-2020 Jem was the program and production director of the annual Big Green Theater eco-playwriting program for public school students, now in its 13th year. Jem’s published essays include "On Eco-Theater" (TCG), “Temporary Communities in the Era of Climate Change” (No Passport), and “A Climate of Change” (American Theatre Magazine, March 2020). This fall Jem will begin a Masters in Environmental Policy at Bard College.