On the 15th anniversary of one of the largest environmental disasters in history, the Moody Center for the Arts and Rice’s Center for Environmental Studies presented the Houston premiere of SPILL, a documentary play about the tragedy of the Deepwater Horizon explosion as told by the Gulf Coast residents who lived through it. Written by the award-winning playwright Leigh Fondakowski (The Laramie Project, I Think I Like Girls), SPILL vividly staged the events leading up to the disaster and the long personal and environmental consequences of its aftermath across the Gulf Coast.
On April 20, 2010, a massive explosion ripped through the Deepwater Horizon rig off the coast of Louisiana. The accident left 11 workers dead, many injured, and triggered the largest oil spill in history. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews with those impacted by this tragic event, SPILL memorialized how Deepwater Horizon changed lives, the region, and the oil industry. SPILL invited audiences to consider the precarious balance of danger and beauty found on the Gulf Coast.
SPILL's set and projection designer, Ryan McGettigan, won the Houston Post Theatre Award for best designer for his work on the show. Additionally, the Houston Post named the show a finalist for the categories of Best Play, Costumes, Lights, and Direction at the annual awards.
SPILL was made possible through the support of the Moody Center for the Arts, Rice’s Center for Environmental Studies, the Rice Arts Initiatives Fund, Rice's Humanities Research Center, Rice’s Center for Coastal Futures and Adaptive Resilience (CFAR), the Rice Office of Sustainability, the Rice Green Fund, and the Rice Department of History, and the Rice Sustainability Institute’s EcoStudio, and the Diluvial Houston Initiative (an Andrew W. Mellon funded project).