Theatre kids still wild about environmental issues

After 35 years, an eco-conscious theatre company has begun operating under a new name, one that better reflects its mission to bring educational, all-ages programming to audiences across the province.

Bye-bye to Green Kids Inc., and hello to Wild Roots Theatre.

“In 1991, Green Kids Inc., sounded very cool, and of the moment, but it was only for the first couple of years that we only did work for elementary schools, which would have had the ‘green kids’ we were trying to get to,” says artistic producer Daina Leitold, who first worked with the company in 1996.

Before long, the group brought its brand of sustainable, entertaining and environmentally focused productions and workshops to middle years, along with junior and senior high school classes, not to mention public outdoor performances that reached a wider age demographic.

“No self-respecting 11-year-old wanted to call themselves a kid,” says Leitold, who’s currently preparing the set and costume design for this season’s Shakespeare in the Ruins production of As You Like It.

So the non-profit consulted with a network of 150 stakeholders beginning in 2024 to turn a new leaf.

The updated name came as a write-in suggestion by a producer who was at the helm when Leitold — one of the city’s busiest theatrical designers as well as a voice-over artist — first found out about the company from an audition posting on the wall at the University of Winnipeg.

As an acting student with minors in education and environmental studies, Leitold felt it would be a perfect fit.

As Green Kids Inc., the organization was founded in 1991 by 22-year-old entrepreneur Jeff Golfman, whose company, Plan-It Recycling, serviced more than 14,000 Winnipeg homes with curbside recycling pickup in 1994, one year before the implementation of city-wide blue-box recycling.

Golfman’s current company, Raw Office, a sustainable office supplies firm, continues to provide annual donations.

“He had said that in school he remembered some people coming to do a song and dance about not drinking the poison under the sink, and he felt it was effective,” says Leitold. “He thought to do the same thing, but for the environment.

“He wasn’t a theatre guy but an entrepreneur, so had this idea, and found some activist friends who were naive and energetic enough to go into school gymnasiums and raise the ruckus.”

Leitold recalls a DIY ethos, with actors writing, designing and directing eco-conscious shows. In the 1990s, Green Kids didn’t have to worry as much about costume and set cost: Value Village — then an independent company but now the largest for-profit thrift operator in Canada and the U.S. — was an official sponsor of Green Kids Inc.

“It was, ‘Here’s all the things you could ever want — for free,’” Leitold says.

Now, the company relies on more affordable and sustainable design principles: in her own work and with the Wild Roots Team, Leitold often fashions costumes, props and sets from found and repurposed materials.

In 2024, the University of Winnipeg’s theatre and film program engaged Wild Roots to develop its approach to sustainable practices.

Last year, Wild Roots reached an estimated audience of 9,000 through its projects, working with nearly 30 workers on a series of events produced for and with organizations such as Bike Week, the Green Action Centre and Recycle Everywhere.

The collaboration with Recycle Everywhere — a firm associated with the Canadian Beverage Container Recycling Association — funded Adventures From the Vending Machine.

Written by Wren Brian with dramaturgy by Heidi Malazdrewich, Adventures from the Vending Machine introduces audiences to Can (Aileen Audette) and Bottle (Maggie Koreen), two beverage containers who wind up in the garbage after their contents are consumed.

After some misadventures, the citrus-flavoured heroes learn about the superiority of aluminum as a recyclable material that doesn’t lose its integrity after repetitive reuse.

The show and its associated workshops have proven sturdy and dependable, reaching more than 5,400 students and educators through 50 performances across Manitoba in their first year on the road.

winnipegfreepress.com/benwaldman

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