The Trū Players are a unique performance group of students age 5 - 11 sponsored by Trū, a progressive microschool in Palo Alto that provides transformative learning experiences to students throughout their elementary education. Every year the Trū Players perform an original stage production about a topic related to their studies that year.
Trū engages children with interdisciplinary projects that weave together science, literature, social studies, and the arts in the pursuit of fundamental questions about the world and our experience in it. Where do things come from? How do they work? What are we trying to change? In answer to that third question, the school often addresses issues of environmental concern, including the effects of agriculture, urban development, and water usage in California. As a part of their investigations, students rehearsed and performed a 90-minute play called If My Earth Were Speaking, a dramatic rendering of the events in the lives of two iconic environmental writers, Rachel Carson and John Muir.
Theater brings history alive for its performers, so in the course of rehearsal and production, the children come to feel a personal connection to these inspiring figures from the past. They also learn that the issues raised by Muir and Carson continue to echo forward in our current time, especially in the mounting dangers posed by greenhouse gases. This was a topic the group had previously dramatized in their 2023 production of Science on Stage, where the performers drew the connection between Nicolaus Otto, who created the first internal combustion engine, and Charles Keeling, who discovered the rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The Trū Players know that their own choices and efforts can make an impact in the world. One way they do this is by choosing a beneficiary for each performance, including the local Loma Prieta chapter of the Sierra Club, originally founded by John Muir himself. Other beneficiaries have included the Union of Concern Scientists, the Rodale Institute, and the Center for Farmworker Families. They often meet with representatives of these organizations, learning about the advocacy work they do, and how the students can become part of the change they wish to see.
Loma Prieta Chapter Director James Eggers said, "The Loma Prieta Chapter thanks Tru School for their donations to our chapter, but even more for developing environmental awareness and a conservation ethic in their students, who give me hope for our future."
"We were honored to be chosen as a beneficiary for the Tru School performance of If My Earth Were Speaking," added Dashiell Leeds, Loma Prieta Chapter Conservation Organizer. "We attended the performance and were delighted by the students' enthusiasm for the environment and impressed by their ability to understand and communicate complex environmental topics."
Tickets to the Trū Players productions (held at Cubberley Theatre in Palo Alto) are available to the public on a donation basis and can be obtained by contacting be@truschool.org or 650-469-3656. Donations are shared between the Trū Players and their current beneficiary. The next performance is Arrival: Stories of Planet Earth on April 2, 2025 at 7:00 pm.