Welcome to the Saudi Arabia of Coal
Written by Jeff Biggers
Directed by Stephanie Pistello
Film projection by Ben Evans
Set, Light and Sound Design by Coal Free Future Project.
Inspired by Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland, written by Project member Jeff Biggers, “Welcome to the Saudi Arabia of Coal” 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.
With a backdrop of film montages and historically-based satirical faux-mercials by filmmaker/actor Ben Evans, “Welcome to the Saudi Arabia of Coal” 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.
Read more and view the trailer:
www.CoalFreeFutureProject.org.
Tickets: $15 general admission and $10 students.
For more information call Pam or Lan at 773.556.3417.
There is a coal-free future ahead for all. We just need to choose it!