As part of the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, New York City's premiere eco-friendly theatre festival, the Coal Free Future Project will perform "4 1/2 Hours: Across the Stones of Fire, " a timely and groundbreaking multimedia theatre production that brings the frontline controversies of the coalfields to the New York City stage, on June 4-13 at the Gene Frankel Theatre, 24 Bond Street, Manhattan.
ABOUT THE CAST:
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. 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, 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. 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 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. For more info on Jeff, see: www.jeffbiggers.comBen 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. 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. For more info on Ben and YERT, see: www.yert.comVideos