Storming Heaven: The Musical
Storming Heaven: The Musical tells the story of the coal-rich small Appalachian town of Annadel, West Virginia, where inhabitants witness the coal company steal everything: their beloved land, deeds, and homes. These mountain people are forced to work the mines, cheated out of their pay, and threatened by hired guns to keep quiet and acquiesce, or lose their jobs and livelihood. Miners try to unionize, are evicted and shot at. Ten thousand pro-Union striking miners fight for their basic human rights and are greeted and defeated by United States Army airplanes, bombs, and poison gas in the tragic battle of Blair Mountain – the largest insurrection since the Civil War.
Katie Blake and Peter Davenport secured the rights to the novel "Storming Heaven" by Denise Giardina, which is the story of events surrounding life in the coal camps of West Virginia in the early 20th Century.
The incredible social and political climate of change during this period in American history is immediately relatable to current US history in the making. We are combining characters' individual chapters and points of view into a singular story that addresses the overarching idea that your choices and and will change the world. The story centers on three main characters who form a romantic triangle. Their personal struggles overlap with and reflect the struggles of coal miners attempting to form a union in the early part of the 1900's. These struggles demonstrate the push-pull nature of love and one's own personal beliefs in a world of ever-changing security and power.
Book/Music – Katy Blake, Peter Davenport
Music – Flip Anderson, Tracy Lawrence
Based on Storming Heaven by Denise Giardina
