Barter wins award

By MARK SAGE/Staff

Rick Rose, Barter Theatre’s producing artistic director, calls the award a culmination of recent accolades given the theater.
In 2002, Barter was named Tri-Cities business of the year. In 2008, the Virginia Chamber recognized the Barter with its Torchbearer award, given because of its impact on businesses in its community. The theater’s most recent award, handed out last month by Virginians for the Arts, recognizes the cultural impact of the Barter, Rose said.
Rose said legislators and others in the community nominated Barter Theatre for the Virginians for the Arts Shining Star award. Since it was the first year the award has been given, Rose said the group had expected 30 or 40 nominees. There were 82.
“It was fairly competitive,” Rose said.
Barter is a natural fit for the award, though, Rose said. The Shining Star award, part of the Virginians for the Arts Arts Build Communities Awards, is for organizations that have demonstrated real community activism.
A press release from Virginians for the Arts said an independent panel of judges picked Barter because of its “extraordinary impact … on the Abingdon community, the region and the commonwealth of Virginia” and because it has “stood the ‘test of time.’”
In considering the Barter for the award, the group looked at the theater’s partnerships with businesses, government and the community, noting specifically its long-standing partnership with Second Harvest Food Bank and the United Way. The food bank still benefits from the Barter’s regular homage to its Depression-era roots, where many patrons bartered their way into shows with crops and livestock. Virginians for the Arts also commended Barter’s work with schools in the region, noting that it gives discounted tickets for student matinees and provides free tickets for students enrolled in the federal free and reduced lunch program. The Barter’s education programs serve more than 55,000 children yearly, the release said.
This was the first Shining Star award given. It’s not the first time, however, that the Barter has received an inaugural state-level award. In 1979, the Barter was one of a dozen first recipients of the Governor’s Arts Awards.
Rose said the award is significant for the Barter in that it gives the theater recognition throughout the state. It helps, he said, in raising money, particularly in other parts of the state. Historically, Rose said the Barter’s had some trouble with funders in the Richmond area, getting them to recognize deserving organizations outside the Richmond area.
Finalists for the Shining Start award included Arlington’s Signature Theatre, Roanoke’s Taubman Museum of Art, the 1708 Gallery in Richmond and the Piedmont Arts Association based in Martinsville.
A second award, the Rising Star, was given to an organization that is not as well established as the Rising Star winner. The Prizery, founded in 2004 in South Boston, received the Rising Star nod.
Awards were given at the ArtWorks for Virginia Conference on Jan. 27 in Richmond.