Coal Country by Erik Jensen, Jessica Blank & Steve Earle
Season 18
October 26-November 19 at the Dairy Arts Center
Opening Night: Friday, October 27
A Regional Premiere
The riveting stories of survivors of a West Virginia mine explosion interweave with the music and songs of Steve Earle in this critically acclaimed new work.
About the Play
“Coal Country” shares the riveting story of a small, West Virginia mining community moving through tragedy to make itself heard. Crafted from interviews of people who lived through the 2010 Upper Big Branch mine explosion, this NY Times Critics’ Pick play by Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank draws you into a world few have encountered and a power dynamic that is all too familiar.
Soul-stirring music by three-time Grammy Award-winner Steve Earle courses under, through, and alongside the words, and the result is…stunning.
Performance Details
Venue
Grace Gamm Theater, Dairy Arts Center, Boulder
COVID Precautions
BETC follows CDC, federal, state, and local guidelines with regards to COVID safety. At this time, patrons will not be required to be masked or to show proof of vaccination at the theater.
If a performance is canceled due to COVID, ticketholders will be able to exchange, refund, or donate their ticket(s) to BETC through the Dairy Arts Center at 303-444-7328.
Content Considerations
“Coal Country” runs approximately 90 minutes without intermission.
“Coal Country” contains adult language and content. BETC does not offer more specific advisories about the subject matter, as sensitivities vary from person to person. However, we strongly recommend that children under 16 years of age not attend. If you have any questions about content or age-appropriateness, please call the BETC Office at 303-351-BETC.
Please note that we do not permit children under the age of six into the theater, and we do not permit babes-in-arms.
Schedule
Thursday, October 26, 7:30 p.m. (Preview – tickets just $25!)
Friday, October 27, 7:30 p.m. (Opening Night)
Saturday, October 28, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, October 29, 2:00 p.m.
Thursday, November 2, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, November 3, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 4, 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 4, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, November 5, 2:00 p.m.
Thursday, November 9, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, November 10, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 11, 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 11, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, November 12, 2:00 p.m.
Thursday, November 16, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, November 17, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 18, 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 18, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, November 19, 2:00 p.m.
We invite you to stay for post-show conversations with the production artists on Opening Night 10/27, and Sunday matinees 11/05, 11/12, 11/19!
CAST
Mark Collins (Goose) has been seen most recently in A Great Wilderness at Benchmark Theatre, where he also appeared in The Quality of Life. Other area credits include Small Ball, The Death of Disney, Mr. Burns – a post apocalypse play (Catamounts), God of Carnage, Before You Go, Cripple of Inishmaan, The Pitmen Painters (Miners Alley Playhouse), Casa Valentina (Littleton Town Hall), Jerusalem, The Beauty Queen of Leenane (The Edge), Lost Creatures, The Gun Show (And Toto too), and How I Learned to Drive (square product). He received a True West Award for his theater work in 2015. Mark is a graduate of the MFA Acting program at UNC-Greensboro.
Anastasia Davidson (Patti / Ensemble Member) is delighted to return to the BETC stage after last performing as Sherlock Holmes in “Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson, Apt. 2B.” Other BETC shows include “Fourteen Funerals,” “Silent Sky,” “Going to a Place Where You Already Are,” “Pride and Prejudice,” and “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.” Along with BETC, Anastasia has had the pleasure of performing at many theatres across the Front Range, including The Colorado Shakespeare Festival, The Denver Center for Performing Arts, Curious Theatre Company, The Arvada Center, The Catamounts, and Miners Alley Playhouse. Her voiceover and motion capture work can be seen in the graphic adventure video game series “Life is Strange.” Look for Anastasia in the feature film “Publish or Perish,” releasing later this year. Training: MFA; The Pennsylvania State University.
Joe Jung (Musician / Musical Director) is an actor-musician based in Queens, NY and a proud member of AEA, SAG/AFTRA, and Local802. He is thrilled to continue doing his part in telling this WV story, having understudied Steve Earle in the original NYC production of Coal Country at The Public and Cherry Lane Theater in New York. NYC credits include: Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson (Broadway/The Public), A Thick Description of Harry Smith, Unity (1918). Regional credits include: Bright Star (The Old Globe), Steven King & John Mellencamp’s Ghost Brothers of Darkland County (Alliance/National Tours), Assassins (BTG).
As a musician, Joe has recorded several solo albums and recently produced Lay Your Hands on Me, the debut album of Tony nominee Carmen Cusack. He also builds cigar box instruments and plays in a jug band, The Salt Cracker Crazies. For all my WV family and friends, and the families and friends of the 29.
Gary - Chris Kendall (Ensemble Member) was seen on the BETC stage most recently in the opening production of our 10th season, playing Tony Reilly in Outside Mullingar. Previous BETC roles include Sigmund Freud in Hysteria, Stipan/Ivo Pasic in Ambition Facing West, Ulysses in Annapurna, Balthazar Schott in Bach at Leipzig, Gene Dinkel in How the World Began (Colorado Theatre Guild Henry nomination), and Porfiry in Crime and Punishment. He has worked with Colorado Shakespeare Festival as Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing, Alonso in The Tempest, Solinus in A Comedy of Errors, and Police Captain in The Inspector General. At other area theaters: F in The Edge Theatre production of Cock and Terry in Casa Valentina, Lou in Vintage Theater’s Stella and Lou, Scrooge in The Catamounts’ Moulin Scrooge, Mr. Chip in Feral Assembly’s The Night Season, Picasso in Miners Alley’s A Picasso (CTG Henry Award). For 2015, he received Westword’s Best of Denver award for Best Season for an Actor.
Cajardo Lindsey (Roosevelt) is an actor, screenwriter, and director. This is Cajardo’s BETC debut. Some of his theatre credits include: Denver Center Theatre Company: ALL THE WAY, Just Like Us, A Raisin in the Sun; Arvada Center: To Kill a Mockingbird, Wait Until Dark, A Raisin in the Sun; Curious Theatre Company: The Minutes, Fireflies, Hillary and Clinton (Zoom), Skeleton Crew, Detroit ’67, The Brother Sister Plays, Fences; The Whipping Man; Shadow Theatre Company: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Blood Knot; Miner’s Alley Playhouse: The Night of the Iguana, Lobby Hero, Misery; Cherry Creek Theatre Company: A Moon for the Misbegotten, Driving Miss Daisy, Visiting Mr. Green; The Aurora Fox: Crumbs from the Table of Joy.
Cajardo is a Denver Post Ovation, Best of Westward, and multiple Colorado Theatre Guild Henry Award-winning actor. Social media = @cajardo
Jason Maxwell (Tommy) is very excited to be making his stage debut with BETC. He is no stranger to stages in Boulder, as he is a proud company member of The Catamounts, with whom he just finished performing as John Metzger in The Pride of The Farm at Metzger Open Space in Westminster. Some past recent credits include Howard in Moon Over Buffalo, Chever in The Crucible, and Cole in Blue Ridge, all at Miners Alley Playhouse. One of Maxwell’s favorite credits includes performing at The Colorado Railroad Museum in many of their past magical stagings of The Polar Express.
Look for his new website coming soon: jasonmaxwellactor.com
Martha Harmon Pardee (Dr. Judy) made her last stage appearance as Hazel in the BETC production of The Children. Other roles include Ann, Holland Taylor’s one woman play about the formidable Governor Ann Richards (Cherry Creek Theater), for which she won a True West Award; Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Amanda in The Glass Menagerie, Abby in The Mercy Seat (Paragon Theatre Company); Agnes in A Delicate Balance (The Edge Theater); Mistress Quickly/Alice in Henry V, Ursula in Much Ado About Nothing, Felicia Dantine in I Hate Hamlet (Colorado Shakespeare Festival); Mrs. Gardiner in Pride and Prejudice (Denver Center); Ginnie in Admissions, Linda in Fiction, Aunt Chris in Up (Curious Theater Company). A voice over teaching artist at the DCPA since 2017, Martha has recorded over 3,100 audiobooks.
Lindsey Pierce (Mindi / Ensemble Member) has been acting on Colorado stages for over 20 years and is delighted to be back in the BETC sandbox playing with these inspiring and talented folks. She was most recently seen playing “Mindi” in BETC’s Coal Country. A few of her other BETC credits include “Caitlin” in Birds of North America, “Mr. Bennet” and “Charlotte” in Pride and Prejudice, “Mary Cassatt” in Morisot Reclining and “QZ” in The Few. She was also recently seen as “Annette” in God of Carnage and in the one-woman show The Amish Project, produced by Ouray’s UpstART Theatre. When not on stage, she can be found narrating audiobooks for the National Library Service or dreaming about next season’s garden.
Simone St. John (Judge) is delighted to return to BETC for Coal Country. Simone’s credits include: Lady Heartell (the narrator), in the Denver immersive experience The Queens Ball: A Bridgerton Experience, Annie Christmas and various roles in Catamounts’ One Way-Back Day, Tituba, Rebecca Nurse and Frank Nurse in Miners Alley’s The Crucible, Letter Writer #4 in BETC’s Tiny Beautiful Things, Mayme in Vintage Theatre’s Intimate Apparel, andShun in Curious Theatre’s Marcus; or Secret of Sweet. Simone was nominated for both a Denver Post Ovation Award and Henry Award for Best Supporting Actress. In addition, she won Westword’s Best Season for an Actress.
Jessica Robblee (Director / Producing Artistic Director) is a director, writer, teacher, producer, and Equity actor who has created theatre in Colorado for over twenty years. She’s proud to have acted with Buntport Theater, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, the Arvada Center Black Box Repertory Company, UpstART Theatre, Theatre Aspen, Miner’s Alley Playhouse, the Butterfly Effect Theatre Company, Curious Theatre, SisTryst Productions, Square Product Theatre, Wonderbound, and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
For twelve seasons, her heart grew bigger and bigger as she co-directed and co-produced Buntport Theater for All Ages—collaboratively creating and performing in several live comedy series and touring productions, plus designing and teaching arts-integrated programs for children throughout the Denver metro area. She has partnered with the Denver Art Museum, Warm Cookies of the Revolution, the Arts Students League, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Black Ink Presents, and East High School– helping to deliver 8 seasons of a site-specific theatrical series inspired by visual art, four audio tours, multiple superhero drawing contests, one game show of rock band contestants, and an original play based on teens’ lives and the Civil Rights movement. She holds a BA in Theatre and English from Davidson College, an MA in Theatre Education from the University of Northern Colorado, and her work has been honored by True West Awards, the Henry Awards Committee, Westword, The Denver Post, and a kindergartener with a drawn-on moustache who said the play he’d just seen her in “sure was a long movie.”
She enjoys volunteering when she can at Project Worthmore, getting to know people far braver and more worldly than she is.
Mark Ragan (Producing / Managing Director) is an actor, director and producer working in the Denver and Boulder theater scene. Mark’s last directing credit was the 2021 Christmas show, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which was nominated for six Henry Awards and won three. In 2019, Mark directed William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet“ at the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder. John Moore described the production as a “refreshing change for those who don’t cling to their Shakespeare with too much reverence.” As an actor, Mark performed the role of Scrooge in the 2021 production of “A Christmas Carol” at the Breckenridge Backstage Theater and was last scene as Laertes in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s production of Mary Zimmerman’s the “Odyssey.” Shakespeare has been at the heart of Mark’s theater career, having performed the roles of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet; Lord Capulet at Chicago’s First Folio Shakespeare Festival; Lysander, Bottom and Peter Quince in productions of Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Rude Mechanicals in Washington D.C., where he was also seen as Angelo in Measure for Measure and Hotspur in Henry V. Mark was a co-founder of Peak to Peak Players based in Gilpin County, which produced both professional and children’s theater. Mark received his classical theater training at the Folger Shakespeare Theater in Washington D.C., studying with Floyd King and Edward Gero. A former national political reporter who covered the White House and Congress in the 1980’s and 1990’s, Mark is also the owner of a nationally recognized content and communications company based in Chicago. He lives in Highlands Ranch with his wife Jamie, a Juilliard-trained classical pianist. He has three daughters, all named after Shakespeare heroines: Juliet, Kate and Olivia. “O they doth teach the torches to burn bright.”
ARTISTIC TEAM
Director: Jessica Robblee
Producing Director: Mark Ragan
Music Director: Joe Jung**
Stage Manager: Wessie Simmons
Asst. Stage Manager: Rowan Livengood
Set Designer: Tina Anderson*
Sound Designer: Jason Ducat
Lighting Designer: Erin Thibodaux
Costume Designer: Sarah Zinn
*Member of BETC’s Artistic Ensemble
** Appearing through an Agreement between Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
Coal Country Supporters
Season Production Sponsor: Karen Steward Memorial Fund
Production Partner: Diana & Mike Kinsey
