It’s a book it’s play – it’s Sea Sick.

On Nov. 12 award-winning journalist and author Alanna Mitchell will bring her one-woman show Sea Sick to the Northern Lights Performing Arts Pavilion.

The play is based on Mitchell’s book Sea Sick: The Global Ocean in Crisis which investigates the effects of climate change on the world’s oceans.

“It started life as a book” says Mitchell who’s written for some of the country’s most prestigious publications including a 14-year stint with the Globe and Mail . She’s also a freelancer for the New York Times’s science section and a contributor to CBC’s Quirks and Quarks.

As Mitchell explains Franco Boni theatre director for Toronto’s Theatre Centre attended one of her talks on the book.

“He said ‘We should make this into a play’” she recalls. So they did; Mitchell and Boni aided by Ravi Jain a Toronto-based artistic director. “The three of us sat in a room for weeks and weeks.”

“I had done all this research for the book” Mitchell says explaining she travelled the world interviewing ocean scientists. Many of those are recounted in the book and in the play.

Mitchell says she views the theatre as another forum for getting out the message on the impact of climate change.

“People who have seen the play may not necessarily have read the book” she says.

Mitchell had no previous theatre experience prior to the launch of the show which she has been performing since 2014. She’s performed it across Canada and internationally. The Haliburton show is part of a tour throughout southern Ontario.

“I’m not a professional actor so I’m very vulnerable” she says adding this seems to be something audiences respond positively to.

“If you didn’t know the play it would sound a little bit grim” Mitchell says adding there is humour mixed in with some of the more serious subject matter. “For me it’s a lot of fun.”

The performance is being presented by Environment Haliburton and Abbey Gardens. Tickets are $25 each and can be purchased at Cranberry Cottage in Haliburton Organic Times in Minden at Abbey Gardens in West Guilford as well as online at http://abbeygardens.ca/product/sea-sick-nov-12/ .