How plays like Weather Girl and Kyoto are finally bringing the climate crisis alive for audiences

<p>The complexities of the climate crisis are a tough sell to audiences but these plays in New York show it can be done</p><p>Despite (or perhaps because of) its overwhelming awfulness, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-crisis">climate crisis</a> has been oddly underrepresented on stage and screen. Humanity’s greatest challenge has often been deemed too much of a downer, too complex or too dull a topic to spawn shows and movies.</p><p>A burst of recent climate-themed cultural output, however, suggests this may be changing. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/article/2024/aug/09/weather-girl-review-summerhall-edinburgh">Weather Girl</a>, a one-woman play about the unraveling of a TV meteorologist who can no longer bear to gloss over climate breakdown in California, has just closed in New York City to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/04/theater/weather-girl-st-anns-warehouse.html">upbeat reviews</a>.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/oct/20/climate-crisis-plays-weather-girl-kyoto">Continue reading...</a>