Production Details

"Dispatches from the Great Burning" is a solo autobiographical performance of one woman’s reckoning with the climate/biodiversity crisis. Fifteen brief dispatches trace her journey to the Mongolian desert to bear witness to the nearly extinct Gobi bear, to San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point Superfund site where residents fight deadly toxins, to the “Great Burning” of the Civil War which her own pacifist Mennonite ancestors barely escaped, and to downtown San Francisco where she helps to shut down the banks who fund the climate catastrophe. A handout on specific actions anyone can take to fight the climate crisis accompanies each performance.

Ms. Stoltzfus has created, directed, performed, and produced over a dozen original (“devised”) performance works, including her current solo play, "Dispatches from the Great Burning." She is a founder and co-artistic director of Black Swan Arts & Media, a San Francisco Bay area company that creates and produces performance and multimedia plays that travel beyond borders of race, religion, culture, and politics. Prior to Black Swan Arts & Media, Ms. Stoltzfus was co-artistic director, playwright, and actor with A Traveling Jewish Theatre, one of the oldest ensemble theatres in the country. She helped found the Network of Ensemble Theatres, a national community of artists and arts organizations dedicated to collaborative creation. Ms. Stoltzfus’s plays have been performed worldwide, from The Los Angeles Theatre Festival to Hamburg’s Sommer Theatre Festival, and from Prague to Appalachia.

Artist Biographies

Helen Stoltzfus
Writer/Performer

Albert Greenberg
Director, Composer and Music Designer