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Student Success

Theatre students Lewis and Nguyen win National Award from Broadway Green Alliance

Published •
Lauren Lewis and Minh Nguyen
The award honors students for exceptional work at the intersection of theatre and sustainability.
Student Success

Theatre students Lewis and Nguyen win National Award from Broadway Green Alliance

Published •

Theatre students Lauren Lewis and Minh Nguyen have been awarded the College Green Captain Prize for Achievement in Greener Theatre from the Broadway Green Alliance. The award honors students for exceptional work at the intersection of theatre and sustainability. 

In spring 2024, Lauren and Minh conducted research for their self-designed capstone on Miami University Theatre’s production of Puffs. They interviewed designers and technicians and researched sustainability tools and resources to take an inventory of the many ways the Theatre department practices sustainable design. They shared resources with guest artists, staff, and student designers to address ways to engage circular economies, the life cycles of materials used, and consider different ways to think about creative solutions in terms of their ecological impact. Working with Miami staff— like Olivia Herron, Miami’s Director of Institutional Sustainability—they also engaged with obstacles and created resources to share with designers and technicians to address them. The project brought awareness to the impact of creative choices and communicated resources for future productions. 

Launched in 2008, The Broadway Green Alliance (BGA) is an industry-wide initiative that educates, motivates, and inspires the entire theatre community and its patrons to implement environmentally friendlier practices on Broadway and beyond. Lauren and Minh were featured in BGA’s social media feed and articles in Broadway World and Broadway News. They will receive two tickets to see a Broadway show, and they attended a meet and greet with Broadway Green Captain, Mara Davi.

Honors student Lauren Lewis (2024) graduated with degrees in Theatre and Arts Management and Entrepreneurship. She notes, “Receiving this award has inspired me to continue this important, planet-saving work. I am also grateful for the opportunity to chat with a Broadway Green Captain and learn more from someone who is actively making sustainable change in the professional theatre world.”

Minh Nguyen (2024) graduated with degrees in Theatre, Arts Management and Entrepreneurship, and East Asian Languages. She shared, “Winning the CGC Award is a heartfelt encouragement for my learning journey - in fact, greening theater has been a continuous process of learning and collaboration for me. This journey involves questioning assumptions, venturing out of my comfort zone, experimenting, relearning, and redoing what's been the norm for us all as theater artists. Over the past year, Lauren and I have taken small, cautious steps together, learning from our faculty's practical experience, connecting and sparking conversations to instill a culture of sustainability. This recognition from the BGA is a powerful reminder that every small action counts, and I'm deeply thankful for it. I hope it will inspire my peers at Miami University to join us as college green captains and take new initiatives to embrace eco-friendly practices. As I learn and grow, I'm thrilled to see a community coming together to work towards a more sustainable future for theater.”

Both students were advised by Ann Elizabeth Armstrong, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre.

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College of Creative Arts Department of Theatre