Roadside Theater
Roadside Theater, a traveling ensemble company, draws on the rich history and culture of Appalachia to develop original plays that tour nationally and internationally.
What emerges in Roadside Theater’s work is a portrait of Americans in a locale, Appalachia, that’s more rich and immediate than you’re likely to read in any social history. The theatrical and artistic reverberations are unceasing
- Morning Edition, National Public Radio
In its 2005 season, Roadside produced 142 performances and theater workshops in 35 communities in six states, Canada, and Ireland. New work included the musical, Miners and Millhands, a collaboration with the University of Virginia’s College at Wise; Mountain Tales and Music, especially created for delegates from 40 countries attending the conference, The Power of Place—Rural Communities, Global Reach; and Betsy: a Concert Performance, featuring original jazz and Appalachian Mountain compositions.
Betsy, now a collaboration with Pregones Theater, premiered at Pregones’ theater in the Bronx, New York City in April. Betsy tells the story of a Bronx-born and -bred, proud Afro-Puerto Rican singer and her unexpected discovery of her Scots-Irish roots. The production is a full-scale musical with 16 original compositions, ranging from ballads to jazz delivered by a five-member Latin-Appalachian band and three vocalists.
Roadside continued its collaboration with New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and its teaching of traditional Appalachian music at Mountain Empire Community College. Theatre Communications Group ( New York) published Promise of a Love Song, a play created and toured nationally with Junebug Productions and Pregones Theater. Chapters devoted to Roadside’s practice appeared in two new books, Local Acts: Community-Based Performance in the United States (Jan Cohen-Cruz, Rutgers University Press) and Performing Communities (Linda Burnham, et al., Art in the Public Interest.) Roadside received the 2005 Paul Green New Play Award, which was especially gratifying because Paul Green’s life-long devotion to social justice and regionalism is an inspiration to the theater.
Roadside Theater Media Links:
