Sustainability Televison has had a working relationship with the NOW! Organization for some time, but I didn’t know much about their work. To learn more about how the NOW! Organization brings together sustainability and performance, I sat down with Rebecca Gu, the International Director of the Act NOW! International Performance Writing Festival.

The focus of the festival, Rebecca said, is the promotion of creative writing, dramatic arts, and natural social sciences. It is through this combination of science and arts that Act NOW! is encouraging creative license and environmental awareness.
There are two age categories for the competition, a Junior (ages 14-18) and a Senior (ages 19-26) category, and can be individual or group entries. The submitted pieces can be any type of performance, including slam poetry, rap, monologue, and music, in addition to the more typical plays. Entries will be judged based on creativity and effectiveness of the sustainability theme.
When submitting entries, it is important to consider if the written work will be sufficient to communicate the sustainable aspects to the judges of the festival. If a video or recording may be useful to demonstrating the vision of the project, Act NOW! more than encourages entrants to provide such work.
The entire concept behind the Act NOW! performance writing festival is to close the divide between Arts and Science. The competition encourages applicants to apply creative thinking and writing to concrete issues such as the environment and social and economic sustainability within our society.
The Act NOW! festival brings together Passion and Purpose, allowing students from the age of 14-26 intersect what they love to do and what they care about. Their motto, “We Dream, We Do” is a direct representation of the awareness of sustainability that is brought forward through performance writing.
Online submission opens on March 14 and closes on April 30 (Rules).  For more information about the festival, go to http://now-org.com/act-now/. To learn more about how the NOW! Organization is helping to educate students about the environment, go to http://now-org.com/.  
Winning submissions are eligible for filming and production by Sustainability Television.