On August 16, 2015, the Aquarium hosted a performance of The Lollygaggers, a comedy theater show about climate change. Written by Rani O’Brien, theater director, and Josh Willis, Ph.D., an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory specializing in sea level rise and ocean warming, The Lollygaggers features music, sketch comedy, and puppets.
Willis is the Project Scientist for the Jason-3 mission to measure sea level rise from space. He decided to explore comedy and improvisation by joining Second City Hollywood. He and O’Brien co-wrote The Lollygaggers as a way to get an important environmental message to audiences, particularly kids, through comedy.
The Lollygaggers ran for four months in Los Angeles in 2014. During that time, Willis and O’Brien led a performance at ClimatePalooza, a public outreach event sponsored by JPL and the University of Southern California.