The German theatre that puts climate centre stage

As part of a wider project to reduce its carbon footprint, a Potsdam theatre is reusing props, recycling costumes and doubling up tickets as transport passes

- Kate Connolly

A handful of Spanish conquistadors fight through thick undergrowth to emerge in the ivy-clad ruins of a fallen civilisation during a rehearsal of Austrian playwright Thomas Köck's Your Palaces Are Empty. Premiered last month at the Hans Otto theatre in Potsdam, south-west of Berlin, the bleak and unforgiving drama probes the wounds of a shattered capitalist world that has exploited its people and the planet's resources. But it is not just the play that is embracing the subject of the climate crisis.

The production itself has been declared climate neutral under a €3m ($3.2m) pilot project launched by Germany's federal ministry of culture. The project, called Zero, is sponsoring the Potsdam theatre and 25 other cultural institutions, from dance companies to museums, to restructure their creative modus operandi.

"It leads to restrictions," says the director, Moritz Peters, as he takes a break from rehearsals. "But it also forces greater creativity." From the lighting (switching to LED bulbs) to reducing travel (rehearsals are longer but less frequent to cut down on journeys) "everything has come in for scrutiny", says Marcel Klett, the managing director.