Press release courtesy of Charlotte Street Foundation.

(Kansas City, Mo.) — Charlotte Street Foundation is excited to announce the opening of a new performing arts venue at 1664 Broadway Blvd just south of downtown Kansas City in the eclectic Crossroads Arts District. The new venue, titled Capsule, will serve as a platform to highlight emerging experimental and hybrid performance practices, demonstrating CSF’s commitment to supporting artist and building audiences for Kansas City’s contemporary performing arts community.

“Copaken Brooks and the Copaken Family have long been supporters of the Charlotte Street Foundation,” said Ryan Biery, Senior Vice President of Brokerage at Copaken Brooks. “Their contribution to the visual and performing arts scene assists in developing up and coming artists throughout the Kansas City metro. The new venue is in the heart of Kansas City’s art community and is a natural fit for the Foundation.”

Amy Kligman, the Executive/Artistic Director of Charlotte Street Foundation, offered why this development is so crucial to Charlotte Street’s mission, stating, “This new space, and the programming within, will enrich the Crossroads Arts District by reinvigorating its grassroots, off-the-beaten-path cultural identity by focusing the types of emerging and experimental, forward-thinking art that established the Crossroads as a center for contemporary art and culture, and underscore Charlotte Street’s longstanding role as a cultural provocateur and a champion for Kansas City’s artists”

Capsule will also house Charlotte Street Foundation’s new residency program, the StartUp Residency. Charlotte Street’s pilot StartUp Residency program aims to foster the development of an up-and-coming, innovative startup such as an artist-run collaborative, business, or organization. This pilot program builds upon Charlotte Street’s 20-year history of providing support and catalytic opportunities for Kansas City-based arts initiatives, entrepreneurs, and collaborative groups in their earliest stages of development.

Capsule will begin its programming in August 2018 by showcasing the 2018 Studio Residency Performing Artist Series throughout the entire month. From Thursday, August 9 through Thursday, August 30, 6 free performances will take place in the brand-new space. The performances are open to the public and people are encouraged to bring friends and colleagues to these experimental performances, showcasing some of the best and most cutting-edge work that is currently being made by Kansas City artists within arts community. From poetry readings­­, live music, dance productions to theatrical performances, fans of the KC arts community will be sure to find something that interests them.

ABOUT THE CHARLOTTE STREET FOUNDATION STUDIO RESIDENCY PROGRAM

Entering its fifteenth year, the Studio Residency Program provides free studio and rehearsal spaces to exceptional young, emerging, and/or already accomplished artists in need of workspace in which to create and to develop their creative processes, professional practices, and peer networks. Through the program’s offerings—which include studio space, required monthly meetings, presentations, studio visits, mentorships, public programs, exhibitions, and access to a multidisciplinary network of artist peers—Charlotte Street’s Studio Residency Program encourages creative production, artistic experimentation and collaboration, professional development, and community building.

ABOUT COPAKEN BROOKS

Copaken Brooks is a full-service commercial real estate firm headquartered in Kansas City and serving the Midwest.  The company’s full suite of services includes investment acquisition and sales, tenant representation and HQ relocations, condo management, property management, asset management, development, leasing (office, retail and industrial), and construction management.  Learn more at copaken-brooks.com.

ABOUT CHARLOTTE STREET FOUNDATION

Charlotte Street identifies the needs and fuels the evolution of an ever-changing multidisciplinary arts ecosystem, acting as its primary provocateur. Charlotte Street cultivates the contemporary, the exceptional, and the unexpected in the practice of artists working in and engaging with the Kansas City art community. Since 1997, Charlotte Street has distributed over $1.1 million in awards and grants to artists and their innovative projects and connected individual artists to each other and to the greater Kansas City community. For more information about Charlotte Street, its awards, programs, and initiatives, visit www.charlottestreet.org.