- Hi, my name is Connie, and I'm one of the co-founders of Nomad Theatre Company.

(mysterious music) Nomad is a site-specific theatre company.

Our tagline is theatre that moves.

So we literally take theatre outside of a traditional theatre space and into locations specific to a play.

So we are bringing the arts into the community.

- Like, just start from kinda where Cindy is and do your cross.

With fake paint and no throwing water.

- Yeah.

- I'm Cristen Monson, and I'm the co-founder of Nomad Theatre Company.

- Oh my God!

- It does not!

- Chloe starts the scene, and then... Nomad Theatre is a site-specific theatre that uses our community spaces and businesses as the locations for the plays that we produce.

- If a play takes place in a bar, we perform it in a bar.

If a play takes place in an art gallery, we are at the art gallery performing the show.

So yeah, it is theatre that moves literally and emotionally in some cases too.

- Why not?

You tell them everything else about my life.

(Cristen laughs) - Someone else jump in!

I am a performer, but I also work at ISU in their Musical Theatre Department.

I teach musical theatre, voice, and music theory.

(Katherine singing in Italian) (bright opera music) You did go a little nuts with the pink, but.

It's amazing.

It's like nothing I have ever experienced before.

(bright opera music) I was like, oh, wow, this is so inviting and collaborative, and I felt like I could really tell stories here.

- So, can we go back a little bit further to... Connie and I had been friends for a while.

We were both actors in the community.

And then we ended up, by happenstance, working in the same office in the School of Theatre, Dance, and Film at Illinois State.

- Cristen and I, who co-founded Nomad, we're really looking for a way to create something new and fresh.

- And through our conversations, our frustrations with not getting to do the projects we wanted to do, we just came upon the idea of maybe, "Hey, why don't we do something on our own?"

- It started with big ideas and just a passion for wanting to bring something for the community that was different.

- What are we talking about here?

- First, it was really hard, because nobody knew what we were talking about or what we were doing or what the idea was in our head.

They were like, "You just wanna come and do shows or plays?

Sure, I guess we can do that."

And we had to go out and find places and ask.

Now we have businesses and places that contact us and say, "Hey, we would love for you to do something in our space," because it really is a great way to bring awareness from the community to a space that people might not know about.

People being able to understand that theatre doesn't only have to happen in a theatre has been really eye-opening, and I think the community is very refreshed by that.

- I'm not gonna stop you if you really want them.

- So this play is called "Paint Night" by Carey Crim.

It's a fairly new play.

It's only been produced in the last three years.

I was looking for new works, and I was literally looking on plays that take place in specific locations.

Listen to her for a few more minutes, and then go on.

And I found this play that took place at a paint and sip, where you go and you paint and you drink wine.

- There!

- (gasps) Miriam!

- [Cristen] We'll be performing at the McLean County Arts Center's new annex.

It's like a blank slate.

Our scenic designer's going to be creating a paint and sip, so there'll be that type of art and easels and paint.

And it will hopefully be like you're stepping into the paint and sip.

- I did it myself.

- We're painting, like, actually painting a picture.

We actually have to have a paint night to learn how to paint the picture that we're painting in the play.

So every night we do the play, we'll have a new painting.

- There.

- We're faking a little bit.

- I think art heals, especially this play.

As funny as it is, it really tugs on your heartstrings in, like, the right way.

- Does someone really need to speak for you to know them?

- Yes!

- This is a truly unique experience as a performer to just kinda step into the space and become a part of it.

- [Katherine] It's definitely a more intimate experience.

I feel like the audience is a part of the story.

- [Connie] It creates a unique, immersive way to experience theatre.

- It isn't real.

- Seeing audiences like, "I've never seen anything like this show before, that was so cool," or, you know, "I've never seen a play in," fill in the blank, right?

Like, "I've never seen a play in my front yard."

"I've never seen a play at the library."

So hearing that and seeing how excited they are to learn what location we'll be at next and everything's kind of a surprise for them, I think that that's what keeps me going in this.

- [Cristen] We have our website, nomadtheatre.org.

You can go there for all of the recent events, you know, past events.

We can't give any secrets away, but we will be going to lots of new places that we have never been in the community before.

- Boop!

- No way!

- What Nomad means to me is just what it mutually means to the community who's experiencing it.

The positivity and the satisfaction and the happiness that they're getting from seeing or being a part of a Nomad show definitely brings me joy.

- I mean, you did go a little nuts with the pink.

Are you drunk too?

- The best part of Nomad are the people that make it happen.

(Katherine giggling) Everybody understands that they're working towards something that's, like, for the greater good.

And there's just something great about that feeling of, like, we're all in this together, we're doing something new, fresh, and innovative, and we wanna see it work.

Being around people that are like-minded, like, that is just inspiring.

(audience clapping) - Theatre is for everyone, and Nomad preaches that.

So if you're afraid, just do it, and I think you will be surprised at what you discover about yourself.

(bright music)