BFA Visual & Critical Studies and the Honors Program present artist and community organizer Ben Fink to discuss his new edited two-volume series of Appalachian and intercultural grassroots plays, Art in a Democracy: Selected Plays of Roadside Theater.

This two-volume anthology tells the story of Roadside Theater’s first 45 years and includes nine award-winning original play scripts; 10 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 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 recently-built prisons. Roadside has spent 45 years searching for what art in a democracy might look like. The anthology raises questions such as, “What are common principles and common barriers to achieving democracy across disciplines?” and, “How can the disciplines unite in common democratic cause?”

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 as one of “27 People Bridging Divides Across America.”

Arnaldo J. López is a cultural worker with a Ph.D. in Latin/o American Literatures and Cultures from New York University. He first joined Pregones Theater when the company set out to transform a South Bronx warehouse into a vibrant performing arts center, and later helped engineer a merger with the historic Puerto Rican Traveling Theater in Manhattan. Versed in a broad set of creative, community, and nonprofit topics, he works with artists in mapping paths toward joyful and sustainable practice. His background also includes ten years in letterpress and graphic design.

This event is free and open to the public.