Art in a Democracy

Roadside Theater, founded in 1975, is a wing of the rural arts and humanities institution Appalshop. Roadside Theater has created Appalachia's largest single body of original plays and collaborated with racially diverse professional theaters and communities across the country to make new plays that address pressing civil rights, economic, and cultural issues of our times. The theater is invested in achieving inclusive community well-being through cultural expression that intentionally breaches lines of race, class, gender, age, disability, and more. Roadside is distinguished by its multi-generational audience of economically poor, working-class, and middle-class rural and urban people.