Art in a Democracy

This two-volume anthology tells the story of Roadside Theater’s first 45 years and includes nine award-winning original play scripts; ten essays by authors from different disciplines and generations, which explore the plays’ social, economic, and political circumstances; and a critical recounting of the theater’s history from 1975 through 2020.

The award-winning plays and their accompanying essays trace Roadside’s rural coalfield origin through its 45-year development of Appalachia’s first regionally-produced body of original musical drama, its experience touring 48 states and seven foreign countries, and its proven methodology for building diverse, inclusive audiences reflective of whole communities.

Art in a Democracy: Selected Plays surveys Roadside’s exuberant and widely-performed People’s History of Appalachia series, its intercultural plays co-created with other culturally specific ensembles, and its collaborations with folk artists in Appalachia and Native America. The anthology makes public the ensemble’s grassroots creation and presentation process. Its two illustrated volumes explore a century-plus legacy of place-based theater in the United States and make the democratic populist theater tradition both attractive and widely accessible.

The plays in Volume 1 offer a people’s history of the Appalachian coalfields, from the European incursion through the American War in Vietnam. The plays in Volume 2 come from Roadside’s intercultural and issue-specific theater work, including long-term collaborations with the African American Junebug Productions in New Orleans and the Puerto Rican Pregones Theater in the South Bronx, as well as with residents on both sides of the walls of prisons.

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Ben Fink worked with the Roadside ensemble from 2015 through 2020, as a member of the Betsy! Scholars’ Circle, as the founding organizer of the Letcher County Culture Hub and the Performing Our Future coalition, and as the cofounder of the cross-partisan dialogue project Hands Across the Hills. He has also served as dramaturg on the German premieres of two Broadway musicals. His work in theater, organizing, pedagogy, and economic development has been featured by Salon.com, the Brookings Institution, TDR/The Drama Review, Harvard Law School, Americans for the Arts, PolicyLink, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2020, Ben was recognized by Time magazine as one of “27 People Bridging Divides Across America.”