What You Won’t Do For Love
A Conversation
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What if we could love the planet as much as we love one another?
"Warm, wise, and overflowing with generosity, this is a love story so epic it embraces all of creation. Yet another reminder of how blessed we are to be in the struggle with elders like David and Tara.” – Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis
What You Won’t Do for Love is an inspiring conversation about love and the environment. When artist Miriam Fernandes approaches the legendary eco-pioneer David Suzuki to create a theatre piece about climate change, she expects to write about David’s perspective as a scientist. Instead, she discovers the boundless vision and efforts of Tara Cullis, a literature scholar, climate organizer, and David’s life partner. Miriam realizes that David and Tara’s decades-long love for each other, and for family and friends, has only clarified and strengthened their resolve to fight for the planet.
What You Won’t Do for Love transforms real-life conversations between David, Tara, Miriam, and her husband Sturla into a charmingly novel and poetic work. Over one idyllic day in British Columbia, Miriam and Sturla take in a lifetime of David and Tara’s adventures, inspiration, and love, and in turn reflect on their own relationships to each other and the planet. Revealing David Suzuki and Tara Cullis in an affable, conversational, and often comedic light, What You Won’t Do For Love asks if we can love our planet the same way we love one another.
Contributors
David Suzuki
David Suzuki is a scientist and Emeritus Professor of Genetics at the University of British Columbia. Through radio, television (The Nature of Things), and fifty-five books, he has communicated humanity’s collective impact on the natural world, an impact that now threatens the future of human life. He is a Companion of the Order of Canada, and has received UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for Science, the Right Livelihood Award for 2009, the Global 500, and thirty honorary degrees from Canada, the U.S., and Australia. Dr. Suzuki has been honoured with adoption and names from eight Indigenous First Nations in Canada and Australia.
Tara Cullis
An award-winning writer and former faculty member of Harvard University, Tara Cullis has been a key player in environmental movements in the Amazon, Southeast Asia, Japan, and British Columbia. In 1990 Dr. Tara Cullis co-founded, with Dr. David Suzuki, the David Suzuki Foundation to “collaborate with Canadians from all walks of life including government and business, to conserve our environment and find solutions that will create a sustainable Canada through science-based research, education, and policy work.” She was a founder of the Turning Point Initiative, now known as the Coastal First Nations Great Bear Initiative, which brought First Nations of British Columbia’s central and northern coasts into a historic alliance, protecting the ecology of the region known as the Great Bear Rainforest. Tara has been adopted and named by the Haida, Gitga’at, Heiltsuk, and Nam’gis First Nations.
Miriam Fernandes
Miriam is the co-artistic director of Why Not Theatre and has worked as an actor, director, and theatre-maker around the world. Recent directing and creation credits include Metamorphoses (CDTPS, University of Toronto), Hayavadana (Soulpepper Theatre), Nesen (MiniMidiMaxi Festival, Norway), and The First Time I Saw the Sea (YVA Company, Norway). She is currently co-writing/adapting for the stage the ancient epic Mahabharata (Why Not Theatre/Shaw Festival), is developing a Deaf/hearing production of Lady Macbeth (in partnership with 1S1 Collective), and working on a new adaptation of The Visit. Miriam is the recipient of the JBC Watkins Award and was nominated for the inaugural Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize. Miriam has trained with Anne Bogart’s SITI Company, and is a graduate of École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris.
Ravi Jain
Toronto-based stage director Ravi Jain is a multi-award-winning artist known for making politically bold and accessible theatrical experiences in both small indie productions and large theatres. As the founding artistic director of Why Not Theatre, Ravi has established himself as an artistic leader for his inventive productions, international producing/collaborations, and innovative producing models, which are aimed to better support emerging artists to make money from their art. Ravi was twice shortlisted for the 2016 and 2019 Siminovitch Prize, and won the 2012 Pauline McGibbon Award for Emerging Director and the 2016 Canada Council John Hirsch Prize for direction. He is a graduate of the two-year program at École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq. He was selected to be on the roster of clowns for Cirque du Soleil.
