An actor who uses comic theatre and music to persuade corporations to address climate change faces a year in prison after the largest bank in the US took offence.

In September, Billy Talen and eight members of the Church of Earthalujah choir walked into the lobby of a Manhattan branch of JP Morgan Chase in New York.

Dressed as central American golden toads, a species that has been made extinct as the result of climate change, they told the staff that they were about to perform "expressive politics".

As the choir sang, Talen, who impersonates a Baptist preacher as "the Rev Billy", then delivered a short sermon about climate change and Chase's record in financing in some of the world's most fossil fuel intensive industrial projects. The bank is one of the largest funders of mountaintop removal mining and other major fossil fuel projects around the world.

Talen and choir director Nehemiah Luckett were later arrested and charged with riot, trespass, unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct. The New York prosecutor called the performance a "criminal stunt" and demanded that Talen go to prison for a year. The trial starts on 9 December.

According to the complaint made by the bank manager, Talen, Luckett and eight other people were "running about the bank while wearing frog masks … jumping on to the bank's furniture, running about the bank, and screaming loudly at others for a number of minutes…"

The manager added that he thought the bank was being robbed, felt in fear for his safety, and claimed that at least one customer or employee started crying.

Talen, who has been performing environmental theatre around the world for more than 20 years, said he was surprised and worried by the charges against him.

"Our whole thing was 15 minutes long. And for 15 minutes [they] want to put us in jail for a year?" he said. "I've served three days in the Los Angeles prison in 2006, other than that – my 75 arrests were usually just overnight. It's surprising."

Earlier this year the choir, which often draws on Broadway actors, did a similar performance at an HSBC branch in London but no one was arrested. In 2011, the group "exorcised" BP in the main turbine hall of the Tate in London.

JP Morgan Chase, which has revenues of $21bn a year and assets of $2trillion, was last week ordered to pay a record fine of $13bn after admitting it made serious misrepresentations to the public over mortgages.