Belarus Free Theatre Stages Capital Punishment Demonstration Today at City Hall

CASEY LABOW (star of TWILIGHT films and Free the Nipple movement) will lead a gathering of performing artists and members of the general public in a demonstration to call attention to the cruelties of capital punishment worldwide, including the U.S., which now awaits the outcome of the death penalty phase for the accused Boston Bomber. As well, the demonstration calls attention to the heightened reaction to public protests in recent months in Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore and cities across the U.S.

The demonstration will begin today, May 5 with a press conference from 10 to 10:30 a.m. on the City Hall steps (250 Broadway), followed by an hour-long protest in Foley Square (63 Foley Square in front of Supreme Court building).

The GIVE A BODY BACK demonstration -- to be staged as detailed above -- is created by the BELARUS FREE THEATRE, the renowned troupe that is outlawed in its homeland of Belarus, the sole-remaining dictatorship in Europe and the last country in Europe with a death penalty. The Belarus government is notorious for executing citizens for no reason and refusing to return the victim's body to family or friends, hence GIVE A BODY BACK.

Speaking at the 10 am press conference will be CASEY LABOW, the TWILIGHT film series star and activist (Free the Nipple); NATALIA KALIADA, founder of Belarus Free Theatre; and MIA YOO, artistic director of La MaMa theater company in the East Village, where BFT is in residence performing its new play about capital punishment TRASH CUISINE.

LABOW, YOO and KALIADA will depart City Hall in time to lead the demonstration in Foley Square. There -- as many people as GIVE A BODY BACK has body bags -- will be inside lying in the Square.

The award-winning Belarus Free Theatre was founded in 2005 under Europe's last surviving dictatorship. Many of the company's members have served time in prison, lost their jobs, gone into hiding, or been exiles.

TRASH CUISINE, currently running at La MaMa, is co-produced in London with the Young Vic, supported by LIFT. Originally developed and presented at Stadsshouwberg, Amsterdam co-produced by the European Cultural Foundation as part of the ECF's Imagining Europe Festival October 2011. Researched with support from Amnesty International. Supported by: Network for Social Change, The Attenborough Charitable Trust, Kevin Spacey Foundationa nd Pleasance Theatre Trust.