'Tings Dey Happen' Hosts Panel with 'Economist' 12/7

Culture Project has announced that its production of Tings Dey Happen - the acclaimed solo show that explores oil politics in Africa's Niger Delta, written and performed by Dan Hoyle and developed with and directed by Charlie Varon - will host a panel discussion with The Economist following the 8PM performance on Friday, December 7.  The discussion will be moderated by award-winning Economist correspondent Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran.

A panel comprised of oil experts will explore the issues raised in Hoyle's acclaimed show, as a catalyst to discuss how oil politics affect our national and international politics, among other US related oil issues.  Scheduled participants include: Michelle Billig, director of PIRA Energy Group's Global Political Risk Service and adjunct professor of energy policy at NYU; David Victor, Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and Director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development; Nick Magel, Associate Director of Global Exchange's Freedom From Oil Campaign; and Tings Dey Happen author and star Dan Hoyle.

Moderator Vijay Vaitheeswaran is an MIT-trained engineer who spent ten years covering energy and environment issues for The Economist. He is the author of "Power the People: How the Coming Energy Revolution Will Transform an Industry, Change our Lives" and "Maybe Even Save the Planet" from Farrar, Straus & Giroux and most recently "Zoom: the Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future," from Twelve books.

"In Tings Dey Happen, Dan Hoyle portrays warlords, militants, oil workers, prostitutes and the American Ambassador to Nigeria, among many others.  In this, his third solo show, Hoyle continues to develop his unique form of journalistic theater.  Having spent a year in Nigeria as a Fulbright scholar studying oil politics, he brings to the stage one of the most important geopolitical stories of our time.  Already supplying 10% of American oil, Nigeria and its surrounding Gulf of Guinea region have been targeted as the "new Middle East" of oil security.  However, militants in the oil-producing Niger Delta are blowing up pipelines, warlords are threatening rebellion and oil company employees are being kidnapped with alarming frequency.  The audience meets all the characters in Hoyle's ambitious, comic and disturbing new play," explain press notes.

Tings Dey Happen officially opened on August 7 and quickly became one of the most talked-about and enthusiastically received Off Broadway offerings of the season. Tings Dey Happen premiered in December, 2006 at The Marsh performance space in San Francisco and ran for six sold-out months.

Performances are Wednesday-Friday at 8PM and Saturday at 7PM, through December 22.  Tickets are priced at $35 and $50 and are available by calling 212-352-3101 or visiting www.cultureproject.org. 

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