At the University of Tennessee, collaboration is key, and this statement doesn’t just apply to our students and faculty! Many of our departments are constantly working together in creative and innovative ways to make campus a better place. A great example of one such partnership is the one between UT’s Office of Sustainability and the Clarence Brown Theatre.

If you’ve ever attended a theatre production, you know that they use beautiful set design as a way of transporting arts lovers into the production, but what happens to those sets after the production wraps? This is a question that the UT Office of Sustainability wanted to address, and because of the department’s drive to reduce waste across campus, many local theatre departments are benefiting.

As a result of this partnership, 880 students have directly benefited from the reuse of production sets across 6 schools. More than 26,500 pounds of materials were saved from the landfill in the past year alone. 90% of the set from this year’s production of “The Madwoman of Chaillot” was recycled or reused, and three truckloads of props were made available for donation instead of heading for disposal.

As we enter the 2019-2020 school year, it’s expected that each production will continue to build upon this partnership allowing even more students to benefit from these reusable set designs and props. We can’t wait to see what great things come of this as collaboration meets innovation at the end of every play.

If you’d like to see a play by this amazing department, please visit https://clarencebrowntheatre.com. Here you can find information on the upcoming season and buy tickets.