Playwright, actor, director, puppeteer, teacher, Wes Sanders, 65, of South Burlington has spent a life time translating serious social and political issues into entertaining musical theater. His latest work "Beat the Heat," presents the issues around global warming in cabaret style – touching on all of the arguments with humor, songs and dances, even a huge puppet dinosaur skeleton who introduces himself as an extinction consultant.

"I want "Beat the Heat" to be an infusion of inspiration and energy for people on the cusp of taking action," Sanders says. "But taking technical material and making it entertaining is difficult." He hopes that the latest version of the cabaret, directed to 4th-6th graders will enable teachers to pick up the discussion about global warming where the play leaves off and incorporate energy-saving issues into their curriculum.

"Beat the Heat" opens with Everyman, in this case an office manager, interviewing a job applicant. She looks like an ordinary woman, but we realize almost immediately that she is something special. "Name?" he asks. "I am what is," she answers, while a heavenly chorus sings "Hallelujah." He startles, but she just rolls her eyes. She's applying for a new job, she says because "There's been a hostile takeover. Your colleagues have assumed control… and now you're changing the climate." With growing exasperation, she describes how the earth is dangerously heating up: "Don't you get it? My work has balance. It's like a house of cards. I pulled twelve all-nighters on the atmosphere alone! You don't just yank stuff like that out of your hat!" He agrees that there have been some bad storms and hot summers, but "you know what they say about New England weather: if you don't like it, just wait a few minutes and it will change." The scene ends with God tearing up her resume and stalking out. "I think I'll just retire," she says. "Better get started on that ark, Noah."

Then through eight more short scenes, Sanders leads us through the basic global warming arguments – from evidence about climate change to reasons for denying man's role in it – all through rhymes, songs, and dances. Scientists wearing badges that say Western Fuels Association conclude, "Well, maybe we'll hate it, but let's not be rash/ Cause fixing it now would cost plenty of cash/ The rich can't afford it, and think of the poor/For now let's do nothing and study some more."

Another scene features an ostrich, a member of the Heads in the Sands Society, who advises the audience, that when they hear anything about global warming they should bend down, put their heads between their legs and chant, "Oh, no, it can't be true. No, no it won't be true." Another scene has a maple tree, leaf peeper, sugar farmer, and trout sing, "We're on our way to Canada." Finally Everyman's daughter Sarah sings out her concern for her future, and led by the dinosaur, the ensemble launches into the long final scene detailing all the ways individuals can make a difference – celebrating "the power of one plus one plus one."

In 1967, Sanders finished his PhD in drama at Northwestern University and started teaching in the Theater and English departments at Oberlin College. Eleven years later, wanting to concentrate on theater, he founded the Underground Railway Theater as a way to comment on social and political issues through drama, music, and puppetry. The name of the theater celebrates the fact that the underground railway famed for helping runaway slaves had its midwestern terminal in Oberlin.

Sanders moved URT to Boston in 1978, and for the next twenty years, he presided over productions with a theme, like the nuclear arms race, the sanctuary movement, and Columbus' discovery of America – from the point of view of the Indians. But URT's most renowned production was not political at all. It was a presentation of Stravinsky's "Firebird" combining the Boston Symphony Orchestra and URT's huge shadow puppets. This version of "Firebird" played all over the world, including Chinese productions in both Mandarin and Cantonese.

Always the teacher and interested in young audiences, Sanders and URT worked with the Boston Symphony Youth Orchestra in a production of Til Eulenspiegel with shadow puppets. This spring, he attended a Youth Summit at MIT, organized by Boston Latin school students, where URT presented an "eco cabaret."

Sanders' connection to Burlington seems like it was written for the stage. In 1998, he decided to retire, tired of the stress of administrative duties in Boston, his marriage over. At that time, his name came up in the national news because he had been a boyhood friend of Aldrich Ames, the CIA agent convicted of spying for the Russians. Susan Young of Colchester, Sanders' high school sweetheart almost fifty years earlier, saw his name and the Boston connection and looked him up. "I followed my heart to Vermont," he says.

These days Sanders is focused on global warming and encouraging people to do everything they can do to reduce their own carbon emissions. He presents workshops for the Vermont Earth Institute, arranges Global Warming cafes, and encourages the development of eco-teams, small groups of neighbors who meet weekly for a month and use the workbook "A Low Carbon Diet: A 30-Day Program to Lose 5000 Pounds" to reduce their household's energy use.

Sanders wrote "Beat the Heat" in 2001, commissioned in part by the 10% Challenge, a Burlington program working to reduce city greenhouse gas emissions by 10 per cent. The show has played in Burlington, Montpelier, Brattleboro, and Denver, Colorado. This spring, Sanders revised the cabaret for 4th-6th graders at the request of the Association of Vermont Recyclers. The next step, says Sanders is to dovetail the ending with an elementary-age version of the "Low Carbon Diet" handbook, just out in May.

For information about "Beat the Heat" and dates of local productions, contact Wes Sanders, 802-863-5708, wesandurt@verizon.net or Kendra Gratton, artsforte@gmavt.net

Barbara Leitenberg writes on senior issues for the Champlain Valley Agency on Aging. This article originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press.