Wishing Tree
Thu 23 Oct, 2025
To complement The Tempest and highlight our shared commitment to sustainability, Andy created The Wishing Tree, a special feature in our accessible family area in the entrance foyer.
Building a Greener Future: Sustainability at Shakespeare North Playhouse
Our Visitor Experience Manager, Andy, has a real passion for sustainability, especially when it comes to making the arts more environmentally conscious. At Shakespeare North Playhouse, we’re proud to be a venue that works to official Theatre Green Book standards, helping us play our part in tackling the climate crisis through practical, measurable change.
What Is the Theatre Green Book?
The Theatre Green Book is an industry-wide initiative created to help theatres and arts organisations work more sustainably. It offers a free and accessible framework for everyone in the performing arts, from designers and technicians to producers and venue teams, to plan productions, operations, and buildings in a way that reduces environmental impact.
The Green Book provides guidance, shared standards, and a measurement system that supports long-term progress toward a more sustainable industry.
We were recently featured as a case study on the Theatre Green Book website, on how we are building our shared sustainability strategy. You can read the full feature here.
Trailblazers in Green Theatre: The HandleBards
Our friends The HandleBards — co-producers of our recent production of The Tempest — share this deep commitment to sustainability. They are an inventive touring theatre company that famously travels everywhere by bicycle, carrying their sets, costumes, and props with them as they perform across the UK.
Since their very first pedal-powered tour in 2013, the HandleBards have been champions of low-carbon theatre and healthy living. With the support of partners, venues, and audiences, they’ve continued to make their tours greener each year. Since 2021, their cycling actors have been joined by an all-electric support van, driven by their company manager, helping transport equipment without relying on fossil fuels.
Like us, they’re determined to keep pushing the boundaries of what sustainable theatre can be.
The Wishing Tree: A Creative, Sustainable Installation
To complement The Tempest and highlight our shared commitment to sustainability, Andy created The Wishing Tree, a special feature in our accessible family area in the entrance foyer.
The installation draws inspiration from the natural and imaginative spirit of The Tempest. The play takes place on an island shaped by storms, change and discovery, where ideas of renewal and responsibility run deep. The Wishing Tree reflects those same ideas, transforming everyday materials into something full of hope and creativity.
Before the show opened, Andy collected recyclable plastic bottles, carefully cleaned and dried them, and set them up as part of the display. Next to the tree, visitors can find scrap paper and pens, inviting everyone to write down a wish; for themselves, for their community, or for the planet. Each wish is placed inside a bottle, which our front-of-house team then hangs on the tree.
The bottles echo the play’s imagery of the sea and messages in bottles, but with a positive twist. Instead of being lost to the waves, these messages stay anchored in our foyer, filled with dreams for a greener future.
The result is a stunning and evolving display of hopes, dreams, and collective imagination.
It reminds us that small acts can spark big conversations about sustainability and that, like The Tempest, creativity has the power to transform the world around us.
The Wishing Tree isn’t just a beautiful piece of community art, it’s also a conversation starter about plastic waste and recycling.
A Message in a Bottle
Did you know that a single plastic bottle can take up to 450 years to decompose? Far too many end up polluting our oceans or forests and harming animal and plant life. By turning discarded bottles into a creative installation, we’re symbolically giving them a second life, filled not with waste, but with wishes.
Each bottle hanging from the Wishing Tree represents a shared hope for a better, greener future. And when the installation concludes, every bottle will be responsibly recycled, completing its journey from waste to wonder.
Our Community, Our Planet
Seeing so many heartfelt messages displayed in our foyer reminds us that community work really can change the world. People care deeply about the future of our planet, and so do we.
