About Us
BareBones Theatre Group, a minimalist performing arts organization, strives to promote drama as a living art form through thought provoking productions whose interpretation is reliant upon a dialog between the playwright, actors and audience.
History
BareBones Theatre Group was founded in 1998 by James Yost, Ryan Gordon and Ingrid Jungermann, three young artists who wanted to create a company whose focus was the integration of theatre and audience through thought-provoking performances of plays of depth and substance. The simplicity of each production would allow the audience to be an integral part of the overall interpretation of a playwrights work.
The group produced its first show at the outdoor venue called Fat City in August of 1998. Since then BBTG has performed in various locations throughout the city including, the Living Art Coffee Gallery, the Carolina Actors Studio Theatre, and the Neighborhood Theater. The company currently produces its mainstage season at the SouthEnd Performing Arts Center at 201 Rampart St.
Vagabond troupe finds a home in new arts center
by Joanne Grosse, Charlotte Observer 2003
BareBones Theatre Group is a little company with big ideas. In January the minimalist troupe, now in its fifth season, moves into a real home, an 4,000-square-foot industrial building.
Brawdeville, an all-female performance art group from Wilmington, inaugurates the new SouthEnd Performing Arts Center at 201 Rampart St., off Tremont Avebye. A February production of "1963," Charlotte playwright Judy Simpson Cook's new play about school desegregation, commemorates Black History Month.
For four seasons BareBones has floated, producing shows now in the Attic Theatre of the Afro-American Cultural Center (such as the current production of "The Illusion" by the author of "Angels in America"), then at Off-Tryon or Queens College.
"Without a home, it's hard for your audiences to follow you," says Jim Yost, BareBones executive director. "It's hard to plant roots."
He envisions SPAC as a studio for theater and visual arts classes as well as a performance venue for independent theater companies. The flexible playing space will be as much as 2,000 square feet with about 100 seats, arranged cabaret-style.
In five years, Yost says, "I would like it to be like Spirit Square was 15 years ago, a place where we can nurture independent groups. A place that becomes a hub for art."
2001 Creative Loafing Theatre Awards
Theatreperson Of The Year
By Perry Tannenbaum
Individually, there were multiple reasons for Anne Lambert, James Yost, and John Hartness to take this prize. Lambert jump-started the theater calendar last season with Charlotte's only tribute to Obie-winning playwright Maria Irene Fornes, directing Fefu and Her Friends. She and her Chickspeare banditas then brought their own feminist brand of guerilla theater to Garbo's, staging readings of Stop Kiss, Savage in Limbo, and Why We Have a Body with strong, revolving casts. Yost, founder and artistic director of BareBones Theatre Group, had a stellar year artistically, earning nominations in the drama category as both actor and director of Drift, as an academic sociopath in Farewell Party, and as director of Skylight. Hartness also achieved multiple nominations while managing Off-Tryon Theatre, now the funkiest, busiest theater space in Charlotte. Most notable was Hartness' stage direction for Corpus Christi and his lighting design for Fefu, Les Liaisons Dangeureuses, Corpus, and The Baltimore Waltz.
But it's what Lambert, Yost, and Hartness achieved together that captures the prize. Bankrolled by an $8500 collaborative marketing grant from the Arts and Science Council, the trio -- and their three theater groups -- put together Charlotte's Off-Broadway. Suddenly, with big print ads and a 17-show season lineup, the Queen City's littlest theater groups loomed large. And so far -- particularly with Off-Tryon's Corpus Christi, BareBones' Turn of the Screw, and the Chickspeare/BareBones Desdemona -- the product has lived up to the hype. The coalition is holding, and Charlotte's alternative theater scene has a new, vibrant synergy.
Awards
2003 Creative Loafing Extreme Awards, Charlotte, North Carolina
Best Theatre Company: "Consistently provocative material in consistently polished productions are enough to place this outfit at the vanguard of the Charlotte theater scene. But BBTG is also at the forefront in developing new works by local writers. And their cool new SPAC in SouthEnd has transformed the former site of Carolina Cutlery into a magnet for a new theater crowd and an epicenter for fringe creativity."
2002 Creative Loafing Theatre Awards, Charlotte, North Carolina
Theatre Company of the Year
2001 Creative Loafing Theatre Awards, Charlotte, North Carolina
Theatreperson of the Year: James Yost (with Anne Lambert and John Hartness)
2000 Creative Loafing Theatre Awards, Charlotte, North Carolina
Best Actress in a Drama: Missy Thibodeaux, Death and the Maiden (winner)
Best Actor in a Drama: Tony Wright, Death and the Maiden (nomination)
Best Newcomer to Theatre: Lorraine Lorocque, Sexual Perversity in Chicago (winner)
Best Newcomer to Theatre: Peter Smeal, Sexual Perversity in Chicago (nomination)
Best Original Play: Ugly Art by Terry Roueche (nomination)
1999 Creative Loafing Theatre Awards, Charlotte, North Carolina
Best Comedy: Private Eyes (nomination)
Best Director of A Comedy: Julie Janorschke, Private Eyes (nomination)
Best Actor in a Comedy: James Yost, Private Eyes (nomination)
Best Newcomer to Theatre: Julie Janorschke, Private Eyes (director) Squirrels(actress) (nomination)
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