By Bernie Petit

Mixed Metaphors Productions doesn’t want to make you finish your vegetables.

“Nobody wants to be told to eat their broccoli,” said Kat Martin, a Charlotte native and cofounder of the artist collective, which creates Charlotte-based immersive theatrical experiences. 

“We want all of our work to be rooted in joy. And we think that you can tell when you sit down to be a part of a piece of art if it was a joyful process or not.”

For Martin and Mixed Metaphor Productions, the creative process for new work starts by collaborating with community and grassroots organizations. That means helping create opportunities for community dialogue, open auditions, community castings and back porch and popup events that bring people together.

The process results in site-specific performances that are co-created with community and invite those who experience them to dream of a better tomorrow together.

“The goal of our work is truly to activate change and to be able to do that you have to be able to envision a world that’s not the one you’re currently living in,” Martin said.

Its latest work, “Kudzu: A Story of Belonging,” asks audiences to consider who Charlotte is for and what stories we tell ourselves about being Charlotteans. Martin received an $18,000 ASC Cultural Vision Grant to support the project, in which Mixed Metaphor Productions is partnering with QC Family Tree, a local nonprofit that provides affordable housing options to those facing poverty in West Charlotte. 

Opening this month, “Kudzu” combines theater, music and art to explore the intersection of housing justice and home. Ten-person audiences will step inside the story by literally entering an Enderly Park home. There, they will meet their “new neighbors,” who are given 30 days to vacate their home, and “the flipper,” who knows how to spot “good bones”

The idea to explore housing insecurity emerged during one of the artist collective’s last productions.

“We had several of our artists working on the project of ‘SwimCap’ that were not sure where they were going to put their head that night and we’re having to deal with figuring out long term housing solutions,” Martin said. “So, it was obvious for us and our creative team that this isn’t an abstract principle. This is a real-life thing and it is happening not only to us but to so many others.”

The story parallels Charlotte’s influx of newcomers to that of the kudzu, which in the 1930s was championed as a vine that would save farms throughout the American South from soil erosion. Kudzu has since “become the de facto icon of what people call the New South,” Martin said.

“The steps of that process of going from this ‘exotic vine’ that’s going to save us all to being a menace that’s covering everything is a very similar story to the 113 people that move to Charlotte every day,” she said. “We see Charlotte transforming itself to bring in the 113 people while covering up and brushing under the rug the 55 to 65 people of Charlotteans that are evicted every day.”

Martin is using her ASC Cultural Vision ASC to help Mixed Metaphors Productions equitably pay the dozen-plus artists working on the project and rent the equipment and resources it needs to make their creative vision a reality.

“Our work is not about us hoarding resource, it is about us spreading it around,” said Martin, who explained that 40% of its ticket sales are split evenly between every artist on the project and another 40% goes to its community collaborator. “Every project we are starting basically from scratch.

“Whenever we receive funds from the Arts & Science Council, it’s like a life-giving breath and we love that. It gives us the chance to spread that love around to all of our artists working on all of our projects.”

Don’t Miss It!

“Kudzu: A Story of Belonging” runs Aug. 22-Sept. 1 on Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30 and 8:30 p.m., Saturdays at 2, 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 and 3 p.m. Performances take place in Charlotte’s Enderly Park neighborhood at a 1930s bungalow at 2916 Parkway Ave. Each performance is limited to 10 people. Tickets are $28 and are on sale now here. Learn more at mixedmetaphorsproductions.com.

ASC Cultural Vision Grant Recipients 

The latest ASC Cultural Vision Grant recipients are:

• Meredith Connelly—$11,000 to support a community-centric curated exhibition facilitating an exploration of bodily autonomy.
• ArtsPlus—$12,000 to support the Do Greater Charlotte’s Creative Lab in fall 2024.
• Blumenthal Arts—$10,000 to support Charlotte Live! Teens, which provides an environment for 6-12 grades students to develop talents and arts appreciation.
• BNS Productions—$20,000 to support its 2024-25 season opening performance of “Clyde’s” by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Lynn Nottage.
• BreatheInk—$16,000 to support a summer youth poetry project for undocumented and first-generation immigrant students between the ages of 12-16 years old.
• Cine Casual—$20,000 to support the second edition of the Charlotte Latino Film Festival in spring 2025.
• Dance Artist Alliance CLT—$9,000 to support Converge, a two-pronged project including a studio subsidy program at five studios and a showcase and master class series to support the development of new works.
• Durag Festival—$20,000 to support an inclusive and transformative Juneteenth celebration.
• First Baptist Church West Community Services Association—$20,000 to support fine arts classes for students at the First Baptist Church-West Clara H. Jones Summer Institute.
• Friends of the Arts at Davidson College—$20,000 to support the Common Thread Theatre Collective, a professional theatre on Davidson College’s campus.
• Dionne Hunter—$10,000 to support the building of community by nurturing, celebrating and supporting creative expressions from community minded artists.
• India Association of Charlotte—$15,000 to support the 28th annual Festival of India.
• JazzArts Charlotte—$17,000 to support Nuestro Tiempo Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble.
• Jinna Kim—$2,000 to produce an Asian American Film Festival and Short Film Screening.
• Lorien Academy of the Arts—$20,000 to support 15 afterschool art clubs at Title 1 CMS schools in fall 2024.
• Martha Connerton/Kinetic Works—$18,000 to support the third annual NC Choreographer’s Residency Project.
• Kathren Martin—$18,000 to support the creation of “Kudzu,” a new piece of immersive theatre using an ensemble-based, community-led devised theatre technique.
• The Mint Museum— $20,000 to support the museum’s Grier Heights Community Youth Arts Program.
• Music at St. Alban’s—$20,000 to support programs that enrich, educate and entertain the North Mecklenburg community.
• Ashley Nickens—$16,000 to build community around the historical and contemporary narratives of Black women and femmes while supporting their creative expression and holistic healing.
• North Carolina Baroque Orchestra—$20,000 to support “The Glorious Orchestral Music of JS Bach and his Contemporaries,” celebratory works by Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann and Veracini performed on period instruments.
• One Voice—$8,000 to create a fourth concert in the chorus’ mainstage slate.
• Project Scientist—$20,000 to support after-school STEAM (Science, Technology, Education, Art, and Mathematics) Club.
• Queen City Concerts—$20,000 to support a classical re-imaging of the musical “The Secret Garden: From the Page to the Stage,” in November at the Booth Playhouse.
• Queens University—$17,000 to support the presentation of international artists, artist engagement and educational activities by the Gambrell Center for Arts and Civic Engagement at Queens University in October 2024.
• Sol Nation—$2,000 to support the Art & Sol Charlotte Teen Exhibition.
• Sullenberger Aviation Museum—$20,000 to support the museum’s re-opening.
• We Rock Charlotte—$11,000 to support weekly music lessons and band practices for youth at We Rock Charlotte and Festival in the Park.