Project Overview
Taking Off Broadway Off Coal: Coal Free Future Project Multimedia Theatre Show Hits New York City Green Theatre Festival in June!
As part of the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, the Coal Free Future Project will present a weeklong run of our multimedia theatre show, "4 1/2 Hours: Across the Stones of Fire," on June 4-13, 2010, at the Gene Frankel Theatre in New York City. Check for more updates to come at our page on Facebook!
The Coal Free Future Project is a creative and artistic endeavor to inspire and galvanize a growing and effective national climate justice movement in this historic moment to halt mountaintop removal mining and ultimately wean our country from fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy alternatives.
Incorporated as a fiscally sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization, the Project is a unique collaboration of award-winning American artists—writers, actors/theatre director, filmmakers and musicians—who have come together to combine their long-time experiences in the clean energy, anti-mountaintop removal and climate justice movements to create performances and workshops that inform and inspire action around a simple but basic truth in our lives: It’s time to envision a coal free future and work toward clean energy independence.
Through original multimedia/performances that incorporate music, film, theater, literature and spoken word, the Project serves as a creative catalyst for dialogue and understanding of the growing impact of mountaintop removal and underground coal mining, climate change and renewable energy alternatives in our daily lives, our communities, our cultures, and our environments.
When Thomas Paine famously challenged our faltering country to embrace the cause of independence over compromise in 1776, he reframed the debate of revolution as a moral question of world leadership.” In a historic moment of crisis, Paine declared: "We have it in our power to make the world over again.
Two centuries later, the Coal Free Future Project has been launched in the belief that the fate of our nation and planet requires a coal free future as an absolute necessity, and calls on us as artists and citizens to “make the world over again” for our generation.
In an effort to draw attention to the national scandal of mountaintop removal mining, and the grave health impacts of coal mining and coal-fired plants, and the potentially catastrophic consequences of climate destabilization trigged by CO2 emissions, the Coal Free Future Project will launch a 20-state tour in 2010 with performances of “4 1/2 Hours: Across the Stones of Fire,” a multimedia production, and follow-up workshops with nonprofit citizen groups and environmental and student organizations on coal, mountaintop removal, climate change and clean energy options.
Project Members
Meet the Coal Free Future Team. Please scroll down to read all four bios.
Jeff Biggers
Jeff Biggers is an actor/performance artist, an award-winning journalist, and the American Book Award-winning author of several books, including The United States of Appalachia, and the forthcoming, Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland (Nation/Basic Books), which takes readers on a journey into the secret history of coal-mining in American heartland. In the ruins of his family’s strip-mined homestead in the Shawnee National Forest, Biggers unfolds a personal and breakthrough portrait of the largely overlooked human and environmental costs of our nation's dirty energy policy. Recovering the missing chapters in the American experience since the discovery of coal in Illinois in the 1600s, Reckoning at Eagle Creek is a revelatory chronicle of the entangled roots and machinations of the coal industry.
According to Jeff Goodell, author of Big Coal, “Nobody writes about Appalachia like Jeff Biggers. His voice is a swirl of history and memory, of fact and analysis, of hillbilly wisdom and journalistic outrage. Reckoning at Eagle Creek is bigger and brawnier than a memoir or cultural chronicle -- it's a passionate howl from the dark heart of American coal country."
A former aide to Sen. George McGovern in Washington, DC and to the Rev. William Sloane Coffin at Riverside Church in New York City, Biggers has been a long-time activist on civil rights and environmental issues. His stories have appeared on NPR and PRI, and in The Washington Post, CNN, The Nation, The Atlantic, and scores of newspapers. He blogs frequently for The Huffington Post.
Ben Evans
Ben Evans is an actor and filmmaker. Raised in Kansas and New Jersey, he graduated from Stanford University with a BS in engineering, then pursued a career in the performing arts in Los Angeles and New York City. Over the past decade, he has performed in film, television, and theater in LA, New York, Europe, and across the U.S. In addition, Ben has worked for over a decade as an academic tutor and teacher both privately and for various educational companies, including The Princeton Review and Ivy West. This past October, in partnership with the University of Louisville Center for Environmental Education, he produced the first annual Blugrass Bioneers Conference in Louisville, Kentucky--the southeast's regional edition of the national Bioneers Conference.
In late 2006, Ben co-founded YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip--a year-long, 50-state eco road trip documentary project exploring the landscape of America's unique approach to environmental sustainability. From 7/4/07 - 7/4/08, the three-person YERT team scoured the country for groundbreaking environmental solutions and outrageous characters, all while putting themselves through a battery of eco-challenges throughout the year with a mixture of outrageous antics, provocative examples, and thoughtful reporting. Ben created short films and online content for the project during the trip and is currently editing and co-directing/producing the feature-length documentary “YERT: The Film,” which will screen at theatres, campuses, and film festivals across the country starting in 2010.
Stephanie Pistello
Stephanie Pistello is an actress, theatre director, and the National Field Coordinator for Appalachian Voices in Washington, DC, working full-time on the national campaign to end mountaintop removal. Originally from the coalfields of Virginia and raised in Kentucky, her work draws from her long-time commitment to live music and theatre production, working as a producer, director and actress to create work that inspires social change and collaboration between urban and rural communities.
Pistello studied theatre and anthropology at Transylvania University, and went on to attend the Atlantic Theatre Conservatory in New York City. Since completing her training at Atlantic, she has produced and directed live theatre and music events throughout the East Coast and Kentucky. Pistello created the Writers Exchange at Berea College, and co-founded the NY Loves Mountains Festival, the first New York City event dedicated to raising awareness and action on the issue of mountaintop removal. As a performer, Stephanie has worked with Young Jean Lee’s Theatre Company, Ann Bogart’s SITI Company, and New Mummer Group Theatre Collective.
Pistello directed the Kentucky premiere of Tennessee Williams’ Candles to the Sun at Actors Theatre of Louisville. The first full-length play by Williams to be produced, Candles to the Sun was a groundbreaking drama about coal miners Alabama in the 1920s-30s, and their attempts to unionize and defend the lives of their families.
In 2009, Pistello worked as a Legislative Associate for the Alliance for Appalachia and Appalachian Voices, organizing citizen lobby weeks in Washington, DC, and lobbying for the passage of HR 1310, The Clean Water Protection Act and S 696, The Appalachia Restoration Act. She is thrilled to be able to use her producing and artistic background to help preserve the culture of Appalachia and the beautiful land from which it is born.
Christa Faulkner
Christa Faulkner is a graphic designer and artist based in Louisville, KY. She completed her Studio Arts degree at Eastern Kentucky University in 2001 and later completed Graduate studies in Expressive Therapies at the University Louisville in 2004. Christa worked for several years as an Art Therapist and Freelance Graphic Designer, while developing her web programming skills through self-study.
In February 2009 Christa combined her background in art, design and social service to start building a design presence that focuses on using greener energy throughout the production of design and open source applications. Recently she was an Art Meets Activism Grant Recipient, awarded through The Kentucky Foundation for Women to produce billboards and a web presence promoting female artists and social awareness.
The joining of these experiences was a natural progression to collaborating with others who also share in the desire to preserve our environment and promote positive social change. Christa is very excited to contribute to the Coal Free Future Project through design, web programming and supporting the end of mountain top removal.
The Tour
Coming to a theatre near you! Tour dates will be posted soon. Tour locations include:
State of the Union Launch
Louisville: Feb. 4th @ 8pm
MeX Theatre, Kentucky Center for the Arts,
501 West Main Street
Louisville, KY
Visit our Facebook page for details:
Asheville: Feb. 5th @ 8pm
Asheville Community Theatre,
35 East Walnut Street
Asheville, NC
Visit our Facebook page for details:
Columbus: Feb. 6th @ 8pm
Shedd Theatre, Columbus Performing Arts Center,
549 Franklin Avenue
Columbus, OH
Visit our Facebook page for details:
East by Southeast Tour
DC: Feb. 9 @ 7pm
Feb. 10 @ 9pm
Bus Boys and Poets , 2021 14th St NW
Washington, DC
Pittsburgh: Feb. 11 @ 8pm
Union Project Great Hall, 801 North Negley Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA
Lexington: Feb. 12 @ 8pm
Feb. 13 @ 2pm & 8pm
Downtown Arts Center, 141 East Main Street
Lexington, KY
Yale University: Feb. 24 @ 8pm
The Whitney Humanities Center (auditorium)
Yale University, 53 Wall Street, New Haven, CT
West Coast Tour
San Francisco, CA:
March 13 @ 8pm,
March 14 @ 6pm
CELLspace, 2050 Bryant Street; San Francisco
Sponsored by Rainforest Action Network
To be announced: Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Tucson, Phoenix,
Heartland Tour
Chicago:
March 19 @ 8pm,
March 20 @ 2pm
Columbia College Conway Center, 1104 S. Wabash, Chicago
Sponsored by Eco-Justice Collaborative, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, RAN, and other Chicago area organizations.
For more information: ecojusticecollaborative.org/
To be announced: St. Louis, Minneapolis, Nashville, Knoxville
Performance
4 1/2 Hours: Across the Stones of Fire
Inspired by Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland, written by Project member Jeff Biggers, “4 1/2 Hours: Across the Stones of Fire” is an original and groundbreaking multimedia production that brings a national audience into the frontlines of the coalfields and mountaintop removal issue today. The play draws from real-life experience and documentation, and seeks to recover forgotten history in our nation’s dark legacy of coal mining.
Based at the home of Marie and Hovie, a young couple living in the mountain holler of Eagle Creek, the play chronicles their attempts to come to grips with their conflicting fates, when their family’s 150-year-old homestead is threatened by a planned mountaintop removal operation. As a strip miner himself, Hovie is determined to move his pregnant wife out of the country; as the last remaining member on her family’s homestead, Marie is torn by their agonizing fate, and the increasingly dangerous health conditions in the mining area.
Visited by Harlan, her mysterious neighbor and first love, Marie learns the 150-year history of her holler and homestead, and the dramatic episodes of the residents to fight the relocation of Native Americans, stop slavery, work for union recognition and mining safety, and save the region from environmental destruction at the hands of outside coal companies and their relentless operations.
With music, and a backdrop of film montages and historically-based satirical faux-mercials by filmmaker/actor Ben Evans, “4 1/2 Hours: Across the Stones of Fire” is a rare journey into the lives of those on the coalfield frontlines, and an entertaining, informative and illuminating theatrical production on the true cost of mountaintop removal and coal mining to our land and citizenry.
Join Us
To make a tax deductible donation in support of the Coal Free Future Project and tour, please visit the Fractured Atlas website.
To purchase tickets to one our our shows:
Working with citizens groups, environmental and student organizations, and coalfield communities, The Coal Free Future Project seeks to reach as wide and diverse an audience as possible, and in non-traditional performance venues, such as planetariums and local “found spaces”, in addition to theaters, recording studios and community centers. Interested groups, organizations and schools are invited to contact the Project for upcoming dates and performances or to schedule an event.
Online profiles
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Updates
2/11/2010 "Saudi Arabia of Coal" brings mountaintop removal to the stage
By Rich Copley
On the surface, it's a family drama.
A young couple, Marie and Hovie, are learning to live together and face big moments and big decisions early in their lives. The big decisions just happen to relate to mountaintop- removal mining, which is quickly encroaching on Marie's family homestead, where she and Hovie live.
"My great-great-great-grandpa hewed the logs for this home," Marie tells Hovie, who works for the mining company, in a performance of Welcome to the Saudi Arabia of Coal at the MeX Theatre in The Kentucky Center in Louisville last week.
Saudi Arabia of Coal comes to Lexington this weekend for three performances at the Downtown Arts Center. The play is based on journalist and commentator Jeff Biggers' memoir, Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland. The book is an account of his own family homestead being strip-mined.
12/07/2009 | Coal is Deadly, Not Cheap
At issue | Dec. 1 Herald-Leader news article, "Commerce Lexington turns more pro-coal; Business group alters policy after E. Ky. trip"
By Stephanie Pistello, Ben Evans, and Jeff Biggers
As world leaders gather for the Copenhagen Climate Summit, we disagree with Commerce Lexington that energy legislation is "the most immediate threat to Kentucky's business climate."
Nothing could be further from the truth. Dirty energy led to Lexington's embarrassing selection last year as the worst carbon footprint contributor in the nation. Commerce Lexington has taken a giant carbon step backwards. Read More...
