The Barbershop Theater sits on Indiana Avenue near The Nations neighborhood. The black box theater space houses companies from Street Theater to Verge Theater Company and was even featured at the Kindling Arts Festival. Throughout this week and the month of April, Unscripted Improv, whose mission is to heal, empower, and connect community through improv, will host its first residency in partnership with Verge, providing shows, jams, workshops and classes.
Alicia Haymer is the producing artistic director of Verge Theater Company and says the goal for Verge and the Barbershop Theater is to produce local and unique work.
“The people that are familiar with the building, I believe, will slide right in with the vibe of Unscripted,” Haymer said. “It is a dream because I have attempted this before and given artists space, and they were like, ‘I got to back out. I couldn’t get a show together. I just couldn’t get an idea together.’ The fact that Unscripted was so well prepared and I always tell artists like, ‘Pack it out. Do four shows a day and capitalize on this opportunity.’ It is a dream collaboration because this is my ideal partnership where, like, make some money for yourself and capitalize. It’s the whole point of collaboration is to truly empower other independent artists.”
Anne Veal is the development coordinator for Unscripted Improv and is artistic directing its residency at the Barbershop Theater.
“There are a lot of developing artists within the improv scene,” she said. “Improv is traditionally sort of a pay-to-play art form. It’s a rarefied few who ever make money doing it. It’s part of the reason it can be an inequitable art form, because it becomes classist about who can afford classes, who can afford to do performances where they’re not being paid, to pay coaches to do things where they’re not being paid. It’s important for us to provide opportunities to be on stage, because there’s only so much development you can do in a classroom. For a live performance, you got to feel that audience. It was important to us to have opportunities for a lot of independent groups that are working. We’re doing a lot of jams. You just show up, and you get stage time. You get those reps to feel it in front of an audience, and that is important for helping artists develop.”
This week in live music:
Tonight, Deftones is at Bridgestone Arena, and Kraftwerk is playing the Pinnacle. Tomorrow night, former WNXP Nashville Artist of the Month Joy Oladokun performs with Medium Build at the Ryman. On Friday night, Jason Isbell wraps up his four nights at the Pinnacle, and Pom Pom Squad performs at the Blue Room. At the same venue Saturday, WNXP Presents Cassandra Jenkins with Molly Martin.