The threat of another century of fossil fuel extraction in Appalachia arrived directly on our doorstep when a company “land man” came to Clear Creek offering a lease for mineral rights to the place that we and many others call home. The character and story of Ezell was born in that moment. Join us for our next sharing Sept 28 - Oct 1, 2023 at Tree Pittsburgh — tickets are available now and you can support the production here.

Prior tour dates and communities:

• April 27-29, 2023 @ Fairfield Osborn Preserve with the Green Music Center (Sonoma, CA)

• July 29-31, 2022 @ Ko Festival in Amherst, MA on the Hampshire College

• July 21-24, 2022 @ Silo City with Ujima Theater (Buffalo, NY)

• June 4-5, 2022 @ Farm Arts Collective on Willow Wisp Organic Farm (Damascus, PA)

• May 19-22, 2022 @ Yale University’s Landscape Lab (New Haven, CT)

• April 21-24, 2022 @ Berea College Forestry Outreach Center (Berea, KY)

• October 20-24, 2021 @ A Studio in the Woods (New Orleans, LA)

• July 23-25, 2021 @ Pine Mountain Settlement School (Pine Mountain, KY)

ezell: Ballad of a Land man

Ezell: Ballad of a Land Man is an environmental, cultural and spiritual parable derived from living in the foothills of Appalachia, one man among many seeking to make sense of the time, place and condition in which we live.  In the story, Ezell’s choices, traumas, ancestors and more intersect with themes of domination and resilience as he seeks to take advantage of an anticipated fracking boom and the opportunity to reconnect with the people and land of his raising. 

Ezell is in part a study of domination in the wide range of its prominent and more subtle forms — domination between a man and the land, between a man and other people, between a man and himself. It is in part a story about how climate change, the extractive resource industry and intergenerational trauma impact the choices and decisions of a man and the land he would like to call home. It is in part a ceremony that calls to our desire for connection and belonging, that reveres nature and binds us intimately within her, that invokes the resilience, love and lessons of our ancestors and generations yet to come.

Within days of the land man’s arrival, our small rural community gathered together to educate and organize. We shared the leases we had been offered with one another, we contacted others in neighboring places to alert them, we called in the expertise of key local organizations, we organized a town hall meeting attended by 400 people. We learned from leaders in West Virginia and other communities about their experience of fracking and joined efforts with other communities in Kentucky and afar who had worked to resist the expansion of pipelines and other oil and gas infrastructure throughout the U.S.

As we contributed to these organizing efforts, we also turned to our art as a means to access our collective resilience in the face of the fracking threat and to inspire action toward the vision of a renewable energy future in harmony with nature and one another.

We were further motivated in this cultural organizing work by our experience of hosting the national premier of Cry You One which involved an extensive cross-regional residency & presentation of 16 New Orleans artists grappling in parallel with the trauma of oil extraction, climate change, land & culture disappearance on the Gulf Coast. That cross-regional exchange with ArtSpot Productions, Mondo Bizarro and other Gulf artists, the threat of further fossil fuel extraction in our region and our efforts to live in greater harmony with nature and one another have fueled our original artistic work here at Clear Creek in recent years and gave birth to the current Ezell project.

Ezell’s Evolution

The Ezell project is a slow-developing story that evolves in response to the land, people and context from which it arose. Here’s what we’ve witnessed so far:

2014-15: The character of Ezell emerges through devising work with a local ensemble as we prepare for the production of Land, Water, Food Story, a community-devised performance shared alongside Cry You One at Clear Creek. Ezell returns in a second iteration of Land, Water, Food Story as a more fully developed character based upon our interactions with the oil & gas company’s Land Man. Our work in this time is supported by a Partners in Action grant from Alternate ROOTS.

2016-17: A Clear Creek ensemble of 8 people develops Where’s That Power Gonna Come From?, a short musical & theatrical touring performance intended to support community organizing in relation to the fracking threat and the vision for renewable energy alternatives. In the performance, a reading of the actual encounter with the land man is shared by Carrie Brunk and the original “generator scene” of Ezell is performed by Bob Martin amidst numerous original songs written and performed by the ensemble (Mitch Barrett, Nicole Garneau, Jacob Graber, Kayla Preston, Robert Rorrer, Mirra Shapiro & Melody Youngblood). Where’s That Power Gonna Come From? was presented throughout Kentucky by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth in Lexington, Hindman and Covington, by Frack Free Foothills and West Sixth Brewery again in Lexington, by New Pioneers for a Sustainable Future in Springfield, by First Friday Berea in Berea, by Kentucky Coffeetree Cafe in Frankfort, by Kentucky Beyond Fossil Fuels at a regional conference in Lexington, and by Alternate ROOTS in Arden, North Carolina.

2018: Bob spends 4 weeks at the Double Edge Creation Lab in Ashfield, MA to further develop the Ezell character and story. He’s awarded the Al Smith Fellowship by the Kentucky Arts Council, the state’s highest award in recognition of artistic excellence, for his community story and theatrical work. The award plus an Artistic Assistance grant from Alternate ROOTS supports inviting Nick Slie into the development of the work as a director and leads to three work-in- progress sharings including a performance during the Solstice Spectacle at Clear Creek alongside The Wastelands, The Way at Midnight and Performing Revolutionary; a performance and dialogue at ROOTS Week; and a performance and pilot of the Dismantling Domination | Cultivating Resilience post-performance engagement session during the Hurricane Gap Community Performance Institute at Pine Mountain Settlement School.

2019: We take a shot at national funding to support our artistic work for the first time and our humbled by the return.  The New England Foundation for the Arts awards Ezell with the National Theater Project and additional support is received by the National Performance Network and Network of Ensemble Theaters.  This support allows for a significant expansion of our local team as well as inviting designer Jeff Becker into our core ensemble and puts us on a trajectory to tour Ezell nationally.  That summer, we host a design residency to develop the Ezell set on the ridge about Clear Creek as well as a series of Climate Capsule installations in the woods along the journey to and from the performance site.  An additional rehearsal residency happens in August and development continues up through bringing the full Ballad of a Land Man story to fruition in a 4-performance premier between September 21 and October 6.  We surround the performance (Story) with other cultural components  that involve an ensemble of two dozen people and begin to understand that Ezell is an eco-cultural experience in five acts — Welcome, Journey, Story, Return & Celebration.  At the end of the year, our core ensemble meets in New Orleans for a long weekend to assess our work together to date and make plans for how the 5-act site-specific Ezell experience will need to evolve to be site-responsive as we tour.

2020:  We host two week-long outdoor residencies for our core ensemble at Clear Creek to begin building the touring set for Ezell, adapting the performance to the new set and exploring new sound and musical elements.  The residencies are an artistic and community lifeline for many of the team and allow us to keep the spirit of the work and the team connection alive amidst the pandemic.  We nourish ourselves in the work and with delicious food grown on site and nearby, with spring water from the mountain and acknowledge the privilege/blessing.  The longer span of time between premiering the work in the woods here at Clear Creek and the projected touring presentations gives us more spaciousness to craft the touring version of Ezell in a way that comes to feel ever more aligned with our values.  We develop a touring prospectus that outlines our intentions and offers a guide for our touring community partnerships.

2021:  Our design team returns to Clear Creek for a residency to complete the set build in May and our full touring ensemble of 9 people is in residency together for a week in June.  We train and team-build together each morning and then split into work groups.  Some of us rehearse and score the full performance, including new adaptations to the story climax which is evolving based on the new touring set and ongoing story development work.  Some of us focus on the guide role — how we will lead the audience through the 5-act experience, deepening the moments of audience interaction, preparing for working with collaborating local artists in each touring community.  Some continue to fine-tune design elements of the new set.  We present a soft opening of the touring version at the Hurricane Gap Community Performance Institute at Pine Mountain Settlement School in July in partnership with Higher Ground and Carpetbag Theater.  In October, we take Ezell to New Orleans in partnership with Mondo Bizarro and A Studio in the Woods and donate ticket proceeds to BIPOC-led organizations focused on relief efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida.

2022-23:  We take Ezell on the road in collaboration with local partners in New Haven, CT (Yale University Schwarzman Center for the Arts); Damascus, PA (Farm Arts Collective); Buffalo, NY (Ujima Company), Sonoma, CA (Green Music Center), Pittsburgh, PA (Tree Pittsburgh) and maybe more to come!

the ezell experience @ Clear creek

We hosted an opening run of Ezell: Ballad of a Land Man at Clear Creek between September 21 and October 6, 2019. The experience included five acts:

1. Welcome: An opportunity to connect with group & guide, orient to the site and enjoy a homemade sweet-potato handcake & drink before embarking on the journey.

2. Journey: A quiet, contemplative walk through woods to the performance site led by a guide and accompanied by musicians. The moderate 1-mile walk has two brief uphill climbs on the way to the site. Accessibility accommodation for the entire journey is possible with advance notice.

3. The Performance of Ezell: Ballad of a Land Man: The one-hour performance is set in the woodlands on the ridge above Clear Creek.

4. Reflection: On the way back from the performance site, guides invite small groups to interact with Ezell’s “Climate Capsules.” These sculptural installations offer an opportunity to reflect on and embody the themes of Ezell along the return journey.

5. Feast: The culinary arts team closes out the evening with an abundance of fresh local food, water from the spring and other treats prepared and served with love. The meal is primarily vegetarian with dairy-free and gluten-free options, accompanied by a rotating cast of musicians.

We encourage all of our guests to be prepared for the site and the season with comfortable close-toed shoes, long pants, layers for rain & warmth and bug spray. Bring cash if you’d like special refreshments and a water bottle if you’d like to carry water with you to the performance site. We will finish by dark, though it’s a good idea to have a light available for the walk back to the parking field.

SOURCING & TOURING Ezell

We understand the presentation of this project as a means to continue and extend efforts that support our collective work of disrupting domination, dismantling oppression and learning how to live in greater harmony with nature and with one another.

While the fracking threat is significant, we are simultaneously deeply inspired by living on Clear Creek, an incredibly bio-diverse forest fed by natural spring water, solar-powered energy and a surrounding community of people who live in close relationship with the land. We have become stewards of this place and have learned its story through walking and working the land, learning its plants and animals, uncovering little by little the lineage and ways of life of the indigenous and settler peoples who lived here before. Our intent with Ezell is to present the threat we face and the resilience we are capable of in equal measure such that people near and far are inspired to dismantle domination and cultivate liberation in their own lives & communities.

We plan to tour Ezell: Ballad of a Land Man throughout Appalachia and across the U.S in 2020-2024. Our primary focus is to share this work with other front-line fossil fuel extraction communities, post-industrial communities and indigenous communities who we believe will relate intrinsically to the content, trauma and resilience of this experience and with whom we are eager to learn and exchange. We are partnering primarily with other artists and community organizers to tour this work and welcome inquiries and invitations.

Contact us if you’re interested in hosting Ezell in your community.

collaborators & supporters

Ezell is a collaborative ensemble project born of its place and people with the support of many amazing folks from near and far.

Touring Team
Written and Performed by Bob Martin (Clear Creek Creative | Disputanta, KY)
Directed by Nick Slie (Mondo Bizarro | New Orleans, LA)
Produced by Carrie Brunk (Clear Creek Creative | Disputanta, KY)
Designed by Jeff Becker (Catapult Studios | New Orleans, LA)
Music Direction & Performance by Cory Shenk
Guide Performance & Musical Accompaniment by Faye Adams-Eaton, Nicole Garneau & Lisa Shattuck
Production, Technical & Music Support by Hannah Burt & Jacob Mudd

Home Team
In addition to the touring team above, our premier and ongoing development of Ezell at Clear Creek has been supported by a great crew of artists, builders, farmers, foragers, neighbors and all sorts of other fine folks.  We acknowledge them here knowing their contributions are carried with us as the work tours:  Joana Amorim, Xyara Asplen, Michael Beck, Bugz, Adam Burke, Phil Feger, Erica Chambers, Erica Fladeland, Clarity Hagan, Jamie Hart, Loren Heacock, Bob Henshaw, Tim Hensley, Debra Hille, Peter Hille, Ben Johansen, Nick Kondziolka, Inan McFarland, Cheyenne Mize, Steve (Snoop) Moberly, Jo Nazro, Ron Owens, Kayla Preston, Timi Reedy, Yamil Rodriguez, Robert Rorrer, Sacha Runa, Terra Luna, Laney West, Laurie White, Connor Zaft and Tommy Johns & Will Hartsock of Neon Bites.

Partners
Ezell: Ballad of a Land Man is made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Theater Project, with lead funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and additional funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Ezell is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by Carpetbag Theater in partnership with Mondo Bizarro and NPN. Ezell is made possible, in part, through a Continuation grant for our partnership with Mondo Bizarro from the Network of Ensemble Theaters' Travel & Exchange Network (NET/TEN), supported by lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Ezell has also been supported through an Al Smith Fellowship Award granted to Bob Martin for artistic excellence from the Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, which is supported by state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The tour of Ezell to communities on the frontlines of the fossil fuel economy is supported by the Chorus Foundation as they work together with our communities for a just transition to a fair and sustainable economy. Ezell was seeded and evolved over many years with the support of Alternate ROOTS through the Partners in Action program, an Artistic Assistance grant, fiscal sponsorship and the ongoing learning & support of an amazing network of artists.

Additional Thanks
Deep Appreciation for Interviews and Coaching that supported the development of this work: Josh Barrett, Jeremy Eaton, Matthew Glassman, Mike Holt, Marin Ireland, Greg Manley, Rebecca Mwase, Carol O'Brien, Randy Wilson interviewing Ivan Gibson as well as Dramaturgical Support, Feedback & Inspiration over the years feedback by Hannah Pepper Cunningham, Kathie DeNobriga, Robert Gipe, Peter Hille, Sean LaRocca, Will MacAdams, Beth Martin Henshaw, Cheyenne Mize, Ron Owens, Kathy Randels, Timi Reedy, Joanna Russo, Walken Schweigert, Alternate ROOTS (Critical Response) family, Clear Creek Telepathic Spiders/Jubilee Crew, Double Edge Immersion Lab, the Hurricane Gap Community Performance Institute community.

Banner photo at page header by Will Major.