Our mission is to use interdisciplinary theater and rural-urban exchange to produce, amplify, and celebrate the art of women and other Appalachian people whose stories are seldom told on stage. Cardinal Cross offers a dedicated space for interdisciplinary, first-voice exploration of 21st century Appalachian identity in live performance. We exist to seek out, collaboratively develop, and present new community-based plays and performance art that reflect the aesthetic and cultural values of contemporary Appalachian musicians, storytellers, performers, digital media makers and designers. We direct, write, perform, teach, and produce in partnership with women, gender-nonconforming and LGBTQ+ people who share our goal of confronting and dismantling white supremacy in Appalachia and beyond. We seek equitable partnerships with documented and undocumented immigrants; people of color, particularly indigenous and Native; people with disabilities; incarcerated people; people informally educated or sustained by digital/alt-economies; non-rural ‘Metrolachians’; rural people with affinities for mainstream culture or tech; and all mountain folx whose relationship to Place is too complex, ambivalent, or flawed to fit into pat creative placemaking narratives. There are so many stories we cannot tell "for" others – they don't belong to us. But we can and will bring our resources, skills, and passion for storytelling to bear in 1. confronting Whiteness within our communities; and 2. equitably developing new works of, by and for those with whom we stand in solidarity as mountain women.