PETERSBURG + COMMUNITY
PRODUCED BY PETERSBURG.
Cornerstone Creative Arts was born in Petersburg, Virginia—and that matters.
Petersburg is a city of extraordinary history, creativity, resilience, culture, and community. It is also a city with a complex past that includes difficult and painful chapters. We believe meaningful art has the power to hold all of those stories—to celebrate, remember, question, challenge, connect, and imagine what come next.
Cornerstone Creative Arts is not simply an arts organization located in Petersburg.
We aspire to be an arts organization shaped by Petersburg, created with Petersburg, and produced by Petersburg.
PRODUCED BY PETERSBURG
PRODUCED BY PETERSBURG represents our commitment to building creative experiences with our community—not simply presenting them to our community.
It means creating opportunities for Petersburg artists, performers, musicians, designers, technicians, educators, students, businesses, organizations, volunteers, and neighbors to have a role in what happens on our stages and behind the scenes.
It means looking locally for talent, partnerships, resources, ideas, and inspiration.
And it means recognizing that every production is bigger than what happens when the curtain rises.
A Cornerstone Creative Arts production can involve a local musician in the orchestra, an emerging technician learning backstage, an artist designing a set, a student discovering stage management, a neighborhood business supporting a production, a community organization helping us understand the issues behind a story, and an audience gathering together to experience it.
That is what it means to be PRODUCED BY PETERSBURG.
ART IN CONVERSATION + COMMUNITY
THE STORIES WE CHOSE TO TELL MATTER.
Our productions and programs will be thoughtfully considered in relationship to Petersburg's history, its people, and the issues affecting our community today.
Our work may create opportunities to explore subjects including housing insecurity and homelessness, HIV/AIDS, economic inequality, identity, discrimination, mental health, belonging, history, social change, and other experiences shaping our communities.
Theatre does not always provide an answer—and we don't believe it has to.
It can ask the question.
It can introduce a perspective.
It can preserve a story.
It can challenge an assumption.
And sometimes, it can simply bring people who might otherwise never meet into the same room.
GROW WITH PETERSBURG.
Community engagement means more than inviting someone to buy a ticket.
Cornerstone Creative Arts seeks meaningful relationships with local artists, educators, schools, nonprofits, businesses, advocates, neighborhood organizations, and community leaders.
Depending on the project, those collaborations may include educational workshops, community conversations, resource connections, artist opportunities, student experiences, volunteer opportunities, local business partnerships, and collaborations with organizations working directly on issues represented in our programming.
When we tell stories connected to the experiences of a community, we want that community to have an opportunity to be part of the conversation.
CREATING OPPORTUNITY HERE
We believe Petersburg should be a place where artists can train, create, produce, connect, and grow.
That includes actors, singers and dancers—but it extends far beyond the stage.
Cornerstone Creative Arts seeks to create opportunities for musicians, directors, choreographers, scenic artists, costume designers, lighting and sound technicians, stage managers, builders, photographers, filmmakers, producers, marketers, educators, arts administrators, and the many other people whose talents bring creative work to life.
We want emerging artists to gain hands-on experience alongside experienced professionals. We want people who have never considered themselves "artists" to discover a place for their talents. And we want established creatives to find new reasons to invest their knowledge and experience here.
The production is part of the education—and the community is part of the production.
CREATIVITY AS COMMUNITY INVESTMENT
Producing the arts locally creates an impact beyond the stage.
When audiences come to Petersburg for a performance, workshop, exhibition, or event, they also encounter our neighborhoods, restaurants, shops, artists, historic spaces, and people.
As Cornerstone Creative Arts grows, we hope our work contributes to a broader creative ecosystem—one that supports local talent, encourages collaboration, activates spaces, attracts visitors, creates opportunities, and strengthens Petersburg's identity as a place where meaningful creative work happens.
Our ambition is not simply to produce great theatre in Petersburg.
We want Petersburg to become part of what makes the work great.
DIFFERENT STORIES. SHARED EXPERIENCES.
A STRONGER TOMORROW.
A rehearsal can become a classroom.
A stage can become a place for discovery.
A production can begin a conversation.
A story can help us see our neighbors—and ourselves—differently.
Cornerstone Creative Arts exists to create those opportunities while honoring the city that inspired them.