Roadside Theater is creating a body of drama based on the history and lives of Appalachian people and collaborating with others nationally who are dramatizing their local life.

Without our stories , how will we know it’s us, and without understanding the stories of others, how can we posibly know hwo they are? For Roadside, the purpose of theater is to increase our understanding of ourselves and our empathy for others. This purpose orders Roadside’s wide range of experimental work, which falls under three broad headings:Creation, Presentation, and Documentation

Creation
Since its founding in 1975, Roadside has created or co-created 55 new plays, which can be grouped by intention.

1. Affirming a people’s history:
   By filling gaps in the Appalachian historical narrative with touring productions of the first professional Appalachian plays, Roadside has publicly proclaimed that Appalachia’s stories count. These plays have been made with local materials: oral histories, traditional ballads and archetypal stories, the forms of indigenous church services, personal memory – all re-imagined for the stage. (See Red Fox/Second Hangin’)
   
2. Telling a national story: Through community-based cultural exchanges and the creation of intercultural plays with other professional ensembles, Roadside links the Appalachian story to the histories and intimate stories of other Americans as a way to tell a larger national story. (See Junebug/Jack, Promise of a Love Song, and Corn Mountain/Pine Mountain: Following the Seasons.)
   
3. Community cultural development: Roadside helps other communities across the U.S. discover their own cultural resources and transform them into public performances based in their local aesthetic forms. (Examples include a wide range of university and public school residencies, as well as extended residencies, such as Roadside’s six-year collaboration in Choteau, MT.)

Presentation
Roadside has toured its creations and co-creations to more than 2,000 communities in 43 states and Europe. Along the way, the theater has developed a sure-fire methodology to attract a popular audience that reflects the nation’s economic, racial, ethnic, educational, and geographic diversity.

Documentation
In order to record and evaluate its practice, Roadside has produced 17 public documents of its work, which include books, videos, audio recordings, and pamphlets. More than three dozen published essays by the theater’s artists articulate the theater’s values and cultural theories.