Details

Reverend Billy Talen is an actor, performance artist and activist who began his experimental preaching in Times Square in 1994. Soon singers were accompanying his ?retail Interventions' inside chain stores, principal targets being Disney, GAP, Nike, and Starbucks. He is legally banned from every branch of Starbucks in the USA and the coffee giant has issued a memo to its managers ?What should I do if Reverend Billy is in my store?' The Church of Stop Shopping hold ?services' wherever they can, in theatres, churches, community centres, forests, parking lots, shopping malls, and perhaps most importantly, inside stores, as close to the cash register as they can get, within spitting distance of the point of purchase. Their feature film ?What Would Jesus Buy' was produced by Morgan Spurlock and their earlier film Preacher With an Unknown God won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. The Church of Stop Shopping is a group of 80 or 90 musician-activists from New York City, led by the Elvis impersonator and preacher Rev. Billy. The post-religious church has used the "charged space" of big retail and consumer banking property for their performances, while also taking the concert stage. Recently the choir has trespassed in JPMorgan Chase and other big banks in the physical dress of the climate-change-killed Golden Toad, educating passersby on the investments that disrupt the biosphere, especially of coal-fired power plants.

Cast/Performers

Laura Newman

Creatives/Company

Director: Savitri D
Musical Director: Nehemiah Luckett