Kindling Arts Festival to Host 22 Performances With Utopias Theme in Nashville

Among the performance offerings at Kindling Arts Festival will be a new musical about the invention of cotton candy, an immersive dance-theater event staged in a former home, nearly a dozen original short-form dance pieces, daring performance art, and even a new opera - all created by Middle Tennessee artists responding to the 'Utopias' theme.

Kindling Arts reveals the full line-up of 22 unique performance experiences for its 9th annual, award-winning summer Festival, centering this year's theme of 'Utopias,' with performances July 23-26 at venues across West Nashville. Highlights from the diverse line-up of performance work created by Nashville-based artists include: a queer, musical reimagining of the Nashvillians who invented cotton candy; fantastical performance art complete with clowns and Carnival queens; a site-specific Southern tea party designed to deconstruct social norms; a sampler platter of exciting new voices in playwriting; and stunning group and solo new dance pieces from some of the most respected choreographers in the city. These unclassifiable performance experiences will be held at OZ Arts Nashville, Darkhorse Theatre, The Barbershop Theater, The Curb Center at Vanderbilt University, Spero Dei Church, Global Education Center, The Back Bar at Verna, and Richland Park. Audiences are encouraged to attend a wide variety of events and show their support of local artists all weekend long by securing an all-access Festival Pass - a Standard Pass costs just $109 and a VIP option (including reserved seating at select events and a merch item of choice) is only $149.

Headlining this summer's Festival is Fairy Floss: A New Musical by Madeleine Hicks & Kara McLeland - the unauthorized, sugar-coated story of how two locals invented cotton candy and developed a love story for the ages. The charming, whimsical production implements a distinctly playful theatrical style, pop-art aesthetics, and fanciful puppets alongside all original music. Fairy Floss' all-star cast of local theatrical talent is anchored by the dynamic duo of Seth Nathan Green and Andrew Newton. Excerpts of this irresistible new work immediately won audiences over at Bubblegum's House of Broken Hearts in February and later this spring at Kindling's annual fundraiser The Disco Ball: Wildest Dreams. The full production will have 2 performances at OZ Arts on Friday & Saturday night during Festival weekend.

OZ Arts will also be a home for innovative, movement-based works, including Objects in the Mirror, a trio of short dances including new solos from Becca Hoback and Emma Morrison respectively, alongside a large group piece from Asia Pyron / PYDANCE set to the music of local indie superstars Snõõper. An additional showcase of short-form works, Common Ground, will feature the powerful work of Friends Life Community and artwork inspired by visual artist Paul Collins, a moving piece from choreographer Autumn Wegner that examines the movements of kindergarteners, and a collaborative dance creation facilitated by DancEast featuring vignettes by several emerging choreographers.

For site-specific new work, audiences can head to The Curb Center at Vanderbilt University where Found Movement Group and choreographer Stacie Flood-Popp are creating the fully immersive dance-theater work Tea. inside the former home. Audiences will be invited to wander from room to room to discover the story of Annabelle, a young woman who begins to buck the traditional Southern social norms and gender roles, alongside a cast of eccentric characters who double as her favorite childhood toys.

Closer to Sylvan Park, the sanctuary at Spero Dei Church becomes the stage for Kindling's first opera presentation: Faith: A New Opera written by composer and librettist Jeremy Smith. The story follows the wife of a preacher in a rural Appalachian church whose faith is put to the test when her husband needs her out of the way so he can enjoy life with his new lover. The Nashville presentation of Faith features live music by Blueprint Ensemble, under the direction of conductor Daniel Krenz, and includes members of Nashville in Harmony making up the fictional church's choir.

Down Charlotte Ave., the Darkhorse Theatre will be home to a diverse array of theater, performance art, and burlesque. Among the exciting presentations is Off the Clock, a collection of new performance art pieces by spoken word artist and musician Landry Butler, burlesque diva GrandmaFun, comedic dance talent Chris Strauss, and theater legend Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva. For audiences interested in the development of new theatrical works, the New Play Platter introduces fully-staged excerpts of five fresh works by diverse local playwrights Josh Inocalla, Mike Lacy, Maya Antoinette Riley, Saúl Rodriguez, and Shea Stripling & Kyle Sahadeo.

The line-up rounds out with a series of performances at intimate venues, such as Clay Steakley's lyrical new play The Wreck of the Manifest Destiny at The Barbershop Theater. The poetic tale draws inspiration from Greek epics, centering around a shipwreck in a mysterious new land where mythological icons such as Medea, Sisyphus, and Grendel must work together to build a new world. Music fans will also want to check out Stuffed Spider's multimedia performance experience Ruined Causes at The Barbershop, while spoken word and dance fans won't want to miss poet Cameron L. Mitchell's new collaboration with choreographer Thea Jones in the choreopoem Kintsugi: Art of Scars.

Near Centennial Park, The Back Bar at Verna (formerly Cafe Coco) serves as the final gathering spot for many Festival events, including the truly eccentric and hilarious Queerest Comedy Show spearheaded by Griffin Bohn & Bec Groner, a workshop and reading event with the Free Nashville Poetry Library and writer Simba Alik, and a 'Festival Remix' comedy set produced by Unscripted that will pay homage to several productions in the Festival, followed by the 2026 Festival Wrap Party as a final celebratory moment on Sunday night.

Additional projects in Kindling Arts Festival 2026: Utopias include:

• Milk Makes Me Sick But My Body Needs It, a riotous one-woman musical from indie darling Hannah Dorfman and director Anne Veal about a 1950s housewife who is controlled by a machine

• See You in Hell, an electrifying burlesque and variety revue inspired by the Seven Deadly Sins, from cabaret legend Viola Vainglory and circus icon Kinetic Kristen

• 30 Plays in 60 Minutes by Where House Ensemble Theatre in which a group of actors performs 30 two-minute plays in a random order dictated by the audience

• Late Stage Elisabeth, a hilarious and uninhibited solo show by Elisabeth Donaldson, including appearances by several of her internet-famous characters and musings on aging in a world that's falling apart at the seams

• Faulty Premise, a bold, original tabletop role-playing game created by beloved local actor Seth Nathan Green alongside a cast of talented improvisers

• Dance Studio Sharings, new choreographic works-in-progress by Arelys Hernandez, Erika Hernandez & Winston Harrison, Amanda Howard, and Kaylee Lane

• Chisme Fantasmagórico: Pool Party, a storytelling event with vibrant colors and an oversized inflatable pool in the courtyard of the Darkhorse, hosted by Olivia Jimenez

• Embodied Creativity, a workshop designed by choreographer McKay House and improviser Carley Haggerty to encourage movement and comedic improvisation

• Amanda Cantrell Roche's Community Frolic, an outdoor participatory workshop that encourages play and collaborative building of new utopic worlds

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