The End of Winter
Will climate change erase winter leaving it to exist only in fairy tales, paintings, and historical accounts? In hot, bushfire-prone Australia our winters are becoming warmer and shorter. The End of Winter is about loss and resilience. It’s about the places one can search for cold weather - places that can be reached via public transport and the imagination.
The End of Winter was first produced by Siren Theatre Co and opened in Sydney on 3 February 2022 at SBW Stables Theatre.
The End of Winter is supported by Critical Stages Touring, and the NSW Government through Create NSW, its arts funding and advisory body.
Siren Theatre Co. and the award-winning team behind Good With Maps are collaborating again on Noëlle Janaszewska’s The End of Winter, a new work for the stage that speaks to our current climate crisis. Written in the wake of the devastation of the 2019 bush fires it asks: What’s happening to winter?
Noëlle Janaczewska is a multi-award-winning Australian writer whose plays, radio scripts, libretti, fiction, and essays have been performed, broadcast and published throughout Australia and overseas.
Noëlle’s unfailing ability to ignite universal emotions and laughter in all of us while gloriously revealing her own exquisite uniqueness is one of this piece’s great joys. This is a feminist work, which explores shifting identities – writer, child, carer, lover, explorer. – Director, Kate Gaul
The themes and ideas contained within The End of Winter lean into the most significant issue of our time – the changing climate and the loss of seasons.
Telling and sharing stories, from the scientific to the personal, is one the most important tools we have to survive climate change. It’s easy to get into a typical conversation about the weather. It’s harder to talk about how changing weather patterns relate to climate change – especially when climate and weather can often get confused. In Australia, we’ve experienced it all: extreme heat, devastating droughts, raging bushfires, floods and cyclones. But these extreme weather events are getting worse as the world heats up.
Written by: Noëlle Janaczewska
Director: Kate Gaul
Production Designer: Soham Apte
Composer: Nate Edmondson
Co-Composer and Sound Designer: Kaitlyn Croker
Lighting Designer: Becky Russell
Performer: Jane Phegan
Producer: Siren Theatre Co & Critical Stages Touring
I loved this show. So thought provoking and such an excellent performance by Jane Phegan. Her stage presence and voice were captivating . A very engaging and entertaining hour. Would highly recommend.