a topical theme for the new york state theater

Two years ago this blog listed six reasons why theatres won't touch climate change. The final reason was: "Many of the leading fossil fuel companies are prominent sponsors of the arts."Things have moved on since then. Most recently the National has staged a climate-change play.

But Jane Mayer's remarkable profile of the oil and gas billionaires, the Koch brothers (blogged below), reminds us how deeply and persistently the richest fund disinformation about climate change.

David H. Koch has also given $100 million to the New York State Theater (above).

The David H. Koch theater presents the work of the New York City Opera and the New York City Ballet, but it would be very cheering if the New York State Theater demonstrated its artistic independence and staged a piece that was as urgent, well-informed and witty as Steve Waters' climate-change play The Contingency Plan.

No serious theatre - whoever's name it carries - should fiddle while Rome burns.