Squarely set in the urban thalamus of the Loop 289-brain that is Lubbock sits The Edge Theatre Company. It is an unpretentious establishment on Boston Avenue, occupying the rented space between a Christian chapel and an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting space. Its founding members, few but indomitable, are a genre-challenging and extensively talented cadre of Texas Tech alumni, long-time Lubbock residents, dedicated interdisciplinary creatives, and lovers of stage theatre all.
The Edge is a relatively new theatre company. In fact, in 2019, it was no more than an idea. Back then, a likeminded group of Texas Tech theatre alums got together and envisioned a theatre outfit that would serve the greater Lubbock community, one readily equipped to champion new works by Lubbock-based playwrights, to embrace a diversity of underrepresented voices, and most of all, to tell rousing, strikingly human stories.
So that's exactly what they did.
With little by way of a budget, with an unused lighting board donated courtesy of LHUCA, and nothing fancier than the building's original fluorescent lighting, they knuckled down and got started. Their first official show was the recent June 2021 premiere of Strange Fruit by Lubbock-local Stephanie Johnson. And they've been going ever since.
New though it may be, The Edge is not your typical tender footed new kid on the block; it is anything but. Its members are seasoned pros of the theatre, and trust me, they know exactly what they're doing.
Director/producer/teacher/you-name-it, and current President of The Edge, Dr. James
Beekman Bush, tells it like it is. The Edge does edgy theatre. The Edge is cutting-edge.
But rather than divisive, Bush says that The Edge aims to be permissive, to give voice
to the oft-unvoiced—veterans, the disabled, the silenced, the traumatized—and it encourages
those voices to offer, on the stage, their own vantage of the truth. Not capital-T
truth, mind you, but the personal, multivalent, lowercase-t truth—your truth, as different from mine, and mine as different from yours; and ours as different from theirs, and theirs as… well, you see the idea.
Like everyone else at The Edge, Bush has had a long tenure in theatre. His resume includes work with Lubbock Community Theatre, Ballet Lubbock, Lubbock Moonlight Musicals, and Lubbock Christian University, where he is an adjunct professor. Not only that, but Bush's educational background, besides being impressive, firmly refuses to fit into a neat, un-Edgian package. He holds a Master's degree in Theatre and Experimental Psychology from TAMU, and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts and Psychology from Texas Tech.
Beyond being responsible for putting up plays year-round, the operators of The Edge sit on the Board of Directors and, when they aren't doing either of those, they teach classes for adults and children both. These classes run the gamut, from acting and dance to apprentice training and community dialogue, to, most recently, a class in dramatic therapy for individuals recovering from trauma and addiction.
Admittedly, the founding members are something of intrepid jugglers with way too many balls in the air, who are simultaneously wearing multiple hats, but they somehow make it work. For example, let's look at Heather Hollingsworth, sponsor and backer of The Edge. Hollingsworth is something of a jill-of-all-trades. She funds The Edge through her business, Five Points Corporation, and personally paid for The Edge's early-stage renovations. But she boasts an extensive background in theatre too. She got her Bachelors in Theatre at Texas Tech, acted for several years with Circle in the Square Theatre in New York, holds her M.F.A. in acting from UT Austin, and soon, once she finds the time, she expects to teach acting and voice classes at The Edge.
Eventually, she plans to bring in local experts and professional contacts to teach additional master classes. She anticipates offering classes in singing, voice-over, casting, and even painting. Her goal is to make the building that houses The Edge a cultural-arts hub.
What else does The Edge have in store for the future? Well, Dr. Bush tells me that The Edge intends to hold not just one or two, but five or six plays a season, to put on short pieces from the students in their many on-site classes, and down the road, to host play development workshops. But even now, they are hard at work. A filmed version of Strange Fruit is upcoming, hopefully by March of this year, and their next play, Motherland by James Anderson, is expected this May.
The Edge's ultimate goal? World domination, says Bush. But it will settle with being a financially stable, creatively open, intentionally inclusive place where unforgettable theater happens. That, and to have some fun, for heaven's sake. They are called plays, after all.
And you better believe The Edge came to play.