THE NEXT FOREVER
New Stories For A Changing Planet
The Next Forever is a partnership of The Civilians with Princeton University’s High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) and Lewis Center for the Arts, created to explore how dynamic storytelling can engage vital environmental subjects and provide the vision and inspiration we need to navigate the challenges of our planet’s future — the “next forever.”
A multi-faceted initiative, The Next Forever comprises an ongoing series of public events and performances, an undergraduate class on narrative and the environment, and a competitive commission-and-residency program for theater makers.
As the author and activist Naomi Klein has observed, the stories we tell ourselves about how we live in the world are foundational to the environmental emergencies we now confront — and to our chances of overcoming them. With funding provided by Princeton University, The Next Forever initiative will award two commissions to theater makers to create work that offers new visions for how we relate to the world around us. Additionally, the program provides the artists with the opportunity to engage over the academic year with Princeton faculty working in relevant fields.
HMEI functions as a vibrant central resource for faculty, postdocs, students, alumni, and others with an interest in environmental topics and research. Through their relationship to HMEI and the larger Princeton community, awardees will have access to a cross-disciplinary range of knowledge and ideas—of scientists, conservation psychologists, historians, policy and communications experts, and others— to support the artists, as they pursue a rigorous inquiry into their subject matter. The artists can be playwrights, composers, directors, performers, live art creators, designers, performance artists—anyone who is a generative creator of story-centered theater.
We believe that the scope and complexity of the present environmental crises ask all of us to think beyond business as usual. The Next Forever is an invitation to artists who are eager to break out of the writing studio or the rehearsal room and develop new work in conversation with leading scholars and thinkers. We are soliciting commission applications that prioritize narrative, require some kind of research process, and engage environmental subject matter on topics such as climate change, biodiversity, food security, urban systems, migration environmental justice, etc. Applicants are by no means limited to the examples in this list. We are interested in any and all possibilities.
‘25 - ‘26 COMMISSIONS
PROJECT ONE
by Gloria Majule
In a post-apocalyptic world where Africa is the only surviving continent, a team of African scientists develop a time machine to travel back in time and warn humanity of the impending doom that lies ahead. Their mission is to change the course of history—or, at the very least, delay the devastation and give humanity a fighting chance.
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Gloria Majule is a storyteller born and raised in Dodoma, Tanzania. She writes for and about Africans and the African diaspora. Gloria has been awarded a MacDowell Fellowship and commissions by Audible, Milwaukee Repertory Theater and Atlantic Theater Company. Her work includes My Father Was Shot in the Back of the Head (Relentless Award Finalist), Culture Shock (Leah Ryan Prize Winner), Uhuru (Alley All New Festival), and Fifteen Hundred (Blue Ink Award Finalist). A 3x O’Neill Finalist and 5x Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nominee, Gloria has been awarded residencies by Yaddo, Art Omi, The New Harmony Project and New York Stage and Film. Her work has been supported by The American Playwriting Foundation, The Alley Theatre, Vassar’s Powerhouse Theater, and The New Group among others. Gloria was the first African woman to receive an MFA in Playwriting from Yale School of Drama.
PROJECT TWO
by Lighting Rod Special
A rollicking farce set on the eve of the wedding of two wealthy young Americans at a seaside resort. As the high-octane human drama unfolds—with secret lovers cropping up like wildfires, and last-minute pleas to break off the wedding shaking the set like earthquakes—the drama of the natural world threatens the proceedings indoors with more and more urgency. At the play’s conclusion, while the characters remain wilfully ignorant to the looming climate-crisis, the elements overtake the resort, and everyone dies. Using Lightning Rod Special’s unique brand of acerbic political satire, U.C.C.S.F. unveils the absurdity of humanity’s self-obsession and its persistent disregard for mounting environmental catastrophe.
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Lightning Rod Special is an award-winning Philadelphia-based company that makes genre-defying original theater from the ground up. Their work explodes complex and controversial questions with precision and play. Since 2012, they have made eight full-length works, an audio series, and toured their productions to 16 cities in 5 countries. LRS has a history of creating performances around contested American topics. Recent works include SPEECH, a poisonous love letter to cancel culture, The Appointment, a musical satire singing and dancing through the absurdity of the American abortion debate (“Best Theater in 2023” in The New Yorker, “Best Theater in 2019” in The New York Times), and Underground Railroad Game, a time-traveling fever dream about American race relations (2017 Obie Award for “Best New American Theater Work,” “top 25 shows in the past 25 years” by The New York Times). www.lightningrodspecial.com
THE COMMISSION & RESIDENCY
Two annual $10,000 commissions + $5,000 residency stipend are awarded annually to create original work that engages environmental subject matter.
The initiative provides commissioned artists with the opportunity over an academic year to engage with Princeton faculty working in fields relevant to their projects. Each recipient will receive a $5,000 residency stipend, as well as a budget to support research activities, travel and a research assistant. Over the course of an academic year, the artists will engage with faculty and students. (Artists will not receive housing and are expected to live within commuting distance. The residency stipend and research budget is intended to defray costs associated with being on campus.) The specific residency schedule will be developed in collaboration with each artist, but as a general rule the artist will be expected to be present on campus at least 14 days during the academic year. Each artist will organize at least one public event, which can be an artist talk, play reading, panel discussion, or other format. Other forms of engagement with faculty and students (e.g., courses, seminars) are also possible. Following the completion of the commission, there may be potential for further development of the work with The Civilians. Proposed projects can be entirely new or in early stages of development. Collaborations between two artists will be considered.
The APPLICATION Process
Applications for the 2025-26 season are now closed. Sign up for our newsletter to be notified when applications open again in 2026.
QUALIFICATIONS
Open to U.S.-based generative artists 18+ who can commute to Princeton during the 2025–26 academic year, with a research-driven approach to creating original or adapted live performance.
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Applicants must be 18 years of age and have authorization to work in the United States.
We will consider a broad range of generative artists including playwrights, composers, devisers, directors and performers looking to create original theatrical work.
Applicants must articulate some kind of research-based approach to creating their work, demonstrating that the residency period is a valuable and necessary aspect of the project.
Applicants must be available to fulfill the Princeton residency component of the commission and should live within commuting distance via ground transportation to Princeton University. The residency period is to take place during the academic year: (September 2025 to May 2026).
We will consider both original and adapted works, provided that the rights to any material not in the public domain have been granted in writing, and a copy of the release is emailed along with the script.
We will consider plays, devised work, performance, live art, musicals—anything that takes place live in front of an audience. If submitting as a collaboration, please submit a single proposal as a team. Your team application should consist of a single joint proposal but with individual bios and work samples.
Scripts and proposals should be submitted as PDF files. Music samples should be submitted as MP3 files.
REVIEW PROCESS
There will be four rounds of reading throughout the process. The review team will consist of The Civilians artistic staff and a diverse team of evaluators familiar with The Civilians.
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As you take the time and energy to apply for The Next Forever Commission, we want to share our commitment to you, our extended community.
The Civilians strives to be a vibrant company of artists whose work reflects our celebration and investigation of diverse human experiences. We believe that our work and our lives are infinitely more complex, rewarding, illuminating, and nearer to truth when we have a wider variety of human experiences in our room, at our table, and on our stages.
The Civilians is committed to dismantling racist, sexist and other unjust and harmful systems and we are committed to anti-racism practices that actively promote equity, inclusion and justice for each person in our community, regardless of and without limitation to race, ethnicity, culture, nationality, gender identity, sexual orientation or identity, religion, age, economic class, educational level, language, immigration status, physical mobility and ability, Neurodiversity and family status. The Civilians believes that everyone should have equal access to our programs, and that our diverse community should be reflected in all that we do.
The process of selecting our Artist Commissions are guided by these commitments. All activities throughout the season are also shaped by these values and priorities, and space is held collaboratively, equitably, and with mutual respect, accordingly.
To learn about The Civilians’ commitments to anti-racism, accessibility, and indigenous peoples, lands, and stories, please visit our living document here: https://thecivilians.org/anti-racism-commmitment/
‘24 - ‘25 COMMISSIONS
IF I FORGET THEE, O EARTH
by Kate Douglas
An astronaut and a robot are rehearsing a mission to Mars in the Utah desert that is interrupted by the discovery of fossils. When a paleontologist arrives to assess their significance, it sparks a conflict around the question of habitability and sustainability on Earth and Mars – in this age of mass extinction, whose work is more vital: the futurists or the historians?
EXTENDED PLAY: If I Forget Tee, O Earth: afterimages
EXTENDED PLAY: Loneliness in a Time of Mass Extinction
TOPIA
by Kate Tarker
TOPIA is a metafictional journey through optimism, pessimism, and two possible climate futures for Providence, RI. In a rapidly changing city, two very different women imagine their way into each other’s lives— and accidentally open Pandora’s box along the way.
‘23 - ‘24 COMMISSIONS
RIPARIAN STATES
by Kareem Fahmy
Riparian States is inspired by true events surrounding the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on a tributary of the Nile and the climate-related factors that make this revolutionary project controversial. The play examines how humanity’s relentless harnessing of natural resources to improve our lives has become a double-edged sword in times of climate catastrophe.
EXTENDED PLAY: “Riparian States” — On Creating a Play as Long and Deep as The Nile
EXTENDED PLAY: Choose Your Own “Riparian State”
WHY Y’ALL HATE EARTH SO BAD
by AriDy Nox
Why Ya’ll Hate Earth So Bad? is an interactive reverse-ancestral play. In its current ideation, it centers a group of young descendants who bootleg the latest in virtual-reality technology to perform a jerry-rigged seance of their respective ancestors from the 21st century, all in the hopes of asking one burning question: Why are ya’ll making Earth so damn unlivable?
The PARTNERS of The Next Forever
The interdisciplinary center of environmental research, education, and outreach at Princeton University – advances understanding of the Earth as a complex system influenced by human activities and informs solutions to local and global challenges by conducting groundbreaking research across disciplines and preparing future leaders in diverse fields to impact a world increasingly shaped by climate change.
The Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University believes that art arises out of questions. Its classes and certificate programs in Dance, Creative Writing, Theater, Music Theater, and Visual Arts, and in the interdisciplinary Princeton Atelier, operate on the principle that rigorous artistic practice is a form of research, innovation, discovery and intervention. Like scholarship of any kind, rigorous artistic practice is a way of interrogating that which is accepted or understood in an attempt to break into the territory of the unknown or under-explored