Shakespeare’s Globe and Letters to the Earth announce speakers for Climate Open House

PRESS RELEASE - Wednesday 17th June

On the opening weekend of London Climate Action Week, Shakespeare’s Globe and award-winning participatory storytelling organisation Letters to the Earth will welcome global leaders and activists for climate justice to the Globe stage to read their “Letters to the Earth”. The day will be opened by Michelle Terry, Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe, followed by fellow speakers throughout the day: Casey Camp-Horinek, Paul Powlesland, Benjamin Carvajal Ponce, Mumta Ito, Victoria Elizabeth and Laura Reineke. Letters will give voice to rivers, oceans, insects, the future, and the Earth itself, as part of Climate Open House at the Globe, a flagship event at London Climate Action Week 2026.

The Globe and Letters to the Earth also invite the public to write creatively, inspired by the provocation of sending a message to or from the Earth. On the day, letters will be added to a growing exhibition inside the auditorium, and some lucky people will be invited to read them out on the Globe stage. The readings will take place alongside Shakespeare’s own words on nature. Visitors will also be welcomed across the whole site for performances, events and activities including a choral concert by Acapellies and monologue Little Animals by Paul Ready in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, with Greener and Cleaner’s sustainability-focused Community Hub alongside Cardboard Adventures in the Underglobe.

Casey Camp-Horinek is an elder of the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma, and has been on the forefront of the global Indigenous Rights of Nature Movement for over a decade. A Traditionalist, Wisdom Keeper, Speaker, Author, Actor and Drumkeeper of the Ponca PaThaTa Women’s Scalp Dance Society, Casey was instrumental in the drafting of the International Indigenous Women’s Treaty protecting the Rights of Mother Earth, and the adoption of the first Rights of Nature and Rights of Rivers Statues by a Tribal Nation of Turtle Island. Casey is a board member of Movement

Rights, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network, Earthworks, and Chairwoman of the Indigenous Council of the Global Alliance of the Rights of Nature.

Paul Powlesland is a barrister, environmental campaigner, and co-founder of Lawyers for Nature. Since helping communities fight the destruction of thousands of trees in Sheffield, he has represented Nature and its defenders in courts and campaigns across the UK, protecting rivers, woodlands, and ecosystems from harm. A leading voice for Rights of Nature, Paul works to reimagine legal systems so they recognise and uphold Nature’s rights. Through his advocacy, public speaking, and role as founder of the River Roding Trust, he champions practical and transformative approaches to protecting and restoring the natural world.

Benjamin Carvajal Ponce is Founder and Executive Director of Uno Punto Cinco, a youth-led climate think-and-do tank advancing climate action and a just energy transition promoting evidence-based education, advocacy, and community-building to help improve the lives of people and ecosystems in Latin America. He's a Mechanical Engineer specialising in energy, with a Master’s in Management for Sustainable Impact from Audencia Business School in France. Over his seven years of experience he has worked with the International Energy Agency, GIZ, Chile’s Ministry of Energy, and CR2. He has been recognised as Goalkeeper Ambassador by the Gates Foundation, Youth4Climate Delegate (2021–2022), one of Chile’s 100 Young Leaders (2022), and Young Leader by Fundación Piensa (2024).

Mumta Ito is a former structured finance lawyer, founder of Nature’s Rights, architect of the Integrated Rights Framework and author of the UK Nature’s Rights Bill – a civil society initiative now in Parliament. Recognised as one of the UK and Europe’s leading experts in the rights of Nature, Mumta is a UN Harmony with Nature expert and an award-winning speaker whose work has been shared in the UK Parliament, European Parliament, the United Nations, TEDx and international climate and ocean summits. Heralded one of 15 'Warrior Lawyers' her work focuses on transforming the legal foundations of society: moving Nature from object, resource and property to rights-bearing subject, and recognising Nature as the foundation of human rights, economic wellbeing and a regenerative future for all life.

Victoria Elizabeth is a legal advocate, climate justice organizer, and storyteller rooted in the U.S. South. She serves as a Co-Founder; Project Manager of the Future Generations Tribunal, a global, youth-led initiative advancing the rights of future generations through community testimony, legal innovation, and movement-building. Victoria also coordinates the People’s Climate Diplomacy Program (PCDP), supporting frontline youth to strategically engage in global climate negotiations and civil society campaigns to ensure a COP-to-Community pipeline on the issues and solutions for an equitable Just Transition. She holds a J.D. from the University of Oregon School of Law with a concentration in Environmental and Natural Resources Law and is a former Sustainable Land Use Fellow and Westling Environmental Justice Fellow. She earned her undergraduate degree in Biology and Urban; Environmental= Sustainability from Marymount Manhattan College, where her thesis explored race, air pollution, and COVID-19 vaccine equity in New York City. Her advocacy includes work with Our Climate and NY Renews, and she regularly participates in COPs, SBs, and Climate Weeks. Alongside her legal and organizing work, Victoria is an intersectional environmental justice content creator. She collaborates with organizations including NRDC, Earthjustice, Blavity, Action for the Climate Emergency, and Black Girl Environmentalist, using video, digital storytelling, writing, and spoken word to make climate justice accessible, grounded, and people-forward.

Laura Reineke is a river guardian, musician, environmental campaigner and one of the leading voices calling for the protection and restoration of the River Thames. Laura is the founder of the Henley Mermaids and the founder of Friends of the Thames, a charity dedicated to protecting and restoring the River Thames through community action, education, advocacy and river guardianship. Through her work, she campaigns for cleaner water, healthier ecosystems, stronger environmental protections and a future in which communities reconnect with the rivers that sustain them. Alongside her environmental work, Laura founded Henley Music School, a charity providing accessible music education, as an accomplished marathon swimmer, Laura has completed the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, including the English Channel, the 20 Bridges Swim around Manhattan Island and California's Catalina Channel. She is now pursuing the Oceans Seven challenge, using her swims to tell the story of our waterways and shine a spotlight on the environmental challenges facing rivers around the world.

Michelle Terry is Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe. She trained at RADA and is an Olivier Award-winning actress who works extensively in theatre, TV and radio, and also writes for stage and screen. Work on stage for Shakespeare’s Globe: Three Sisters, Richard III (2024), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2023), King Lear (2022), Twelfth Night (2021), The Taming of the Shrew (2020), Henry IV Part 1 (2019), Macbeth, Hamlet and As You Like It (2018), As You Like It (2015), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2013), and Love’s Labour’s Lost (2007). As director: The Fir Tree in 2021 and The Complete Walks in 2016. Other work in theatre includes: An Oak Tree at The Young Vic, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, The Winter’s Tale, Pericles and The Crucible for the RSC; Henry V at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre; Privacy and The Man Who Had All the Luck at the Donmar; Cleansed, 50 Years of the National Theatre, The Comedy of Errors, London Assurance, All’s Well That Ends Well, and England People Very Nice at the National Theatre; Before the Party at the Almeida; In the Republic of Happiness and Tribes at the Royal Court; Light Shining in Buckinghamshire at the Arcola; War on Terror, Two Cigarettes and 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover at the Bush; The Promise at the New Wimbledon Theatre; Beautiful Thing at the Sound Theatre; Burial at Thebes at Nottingham Playhouse; As You Like It at the New Vic, Newcastle-Under Lyme; and Blithe Spirit for The Peter Hall Company on UK tour and in the West End. TV includes: Marcella, The Café and Extras. Film includes: Five Truths for the V&A and National Theatre. Writing includes: My Mark and Becoming (writer and performer) for the Donmar; Sudden Loss of Dignity for the Bush and The Café Series 1&2 for Sky One. Michelle Terry is an Honorary Fellow of Cardiff University, Trustee of Pentabus Theatre Company and Patron of Front Room Theatre and The Blakehay Theatre in Weston-Super-Mare.

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SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE

Website | Shakespearesglobe.com

Our Cause

We celebrate Shakespeare’s transformative impact on the world by conducting a radical theatrical experiment. Inspired and informed by the unique historic playing conditions of two beautiful iconic theatres, our diverse programme of work harnesses the power of performance, cultivates intellectual

curiosity, and excites learning to make Shakespeare accessible for all.

‘And let us …on your imaginary forces work’ Henry V, Prologue.

LETTERS TO THE EARTH

Letters to the Earth is an award-winning participatory and storytelling organisation transforming people’s relationship with the Earth for a more sustainable and regenerative world. Via creative workshops, nature-based programmes, public artworks and international storytelling campaigns, Letters to the Earth awakens people’s innate love and connection with nature and inspires courageous and resilient action for a liveable planet. Writing a Letter to or from the Earth is at the heart of everything they do.

Launched in the UK in 2019 by theatre-makers, artists and writers, their book; Letters to the Earth, Writing to a Planet in Crisis, published by HarperCollins and introduced by Emma Thompson, was named NB Magazine Non-Fiction Book of the Month and won the 2020 Bronze Award for Best Non-Fiction Audiobook at the New York Festivals Radio Awards. In 2020, Letters to the Earth was nominated for Best Campaign by Julie’s Bicycle’s Creative Green Awards. In 2022 they won the inaugural Global Dimensions Teachers Choice Award for their; deeply moving and motivating; educational and community resources.

In 2021 Letters to the Earth partnered with Shakespeare's Globe to record Letters to camera for their COP26 media campaign, featuring the late Vivienne Westwood, Booker Prize winning author Ben Okri, and Skins star actor Freya Mavor.

www.letterstotheearth.com