“The Big Family Business" (Submitted photo)
Move and sing at the Foundry’s Trad Romp Wknd
- Published: October 24, 2025
When the foot-stomping starts at the Foundry Theater next weekend, it won’t be just another weekend of concerts. Trad Romp Wknd, set for Oct. 24–26, is shaping up to be a full-bodied celebration of traditional music, movement and community.
The weekend, co-presented by Mad River Theater Works and The Big Family Business, will gather a lineup of performers whose lives and art have long intertwined, alongside the wider community, which is invited to play its own part in creating art and fellowship.
The weekend opens Friday with performances by banjo player, songwriter and dancer Evie Ladin, a onetime member of the locally legendary Rhythm in Shoes; Good & Young — that is, Rhythm in Shoes founders Rick Good and Sharon Leahy with daughter and son-in-law Emma and Linzay Young; and Bob Lucas and the Hedgehog String Band, followed by an open old-time jam for anyone who wants to join in.
Saturday will feature workshops in music and movement, then an evening square dance with The Corndrinkers. On Sunday, indie-roots band The Mammals, led by Mike Merenda and Ruth Ungar of New York’s Hudson Valley, will take the stage.
Foundry Director and Mad River Theater Works Director Chris Westhoff said Trad Romp Wknd is a “good distillation” of what he’s been building through the theater’s programming — a focus on traditional art forms through both performance and participation.
“These are things that bring us and hold us together,” he said. “So if we can preserve them, maybe we can come together.”
The lineup, Westhoff said, assembled organically. Ladin reached out about performing; he and Leahy were already talking about a weekend of concerts, workshops and dance. With Ladin and The Mammals — whose members are longtime friends of Good, Leahy and Ladin — the event found its rhythm.
Saturday’s workshops will be part demonstrative, part participatory. Fiddle and banjo workshops will showcase Cajun, Appalachian, old-time and honky-tonk styles with fiddlers Barb Kuhns, Linda Scutt, Linzay Young and Bob Lucas, and banjo players Good, Lucas, Tom Duffee and Geoff Hohwald.
Ladin will lead body music and rhythm training, and present educational workshops at Mills Lawn and the Antioch School. Good, Westhoff and Duffee will lead a session on protest songs that “speak truth to power.”
Leahy will lead a clogging basics class open to “anyone who likes to dance,” and, with Good and Emma Young, teach three-part country harmonies.
“[These events] are participatory and they don’t fall into the predictable capitalistic modality of consumption,” Westhoff said.
To that end, Leahy said, the weekend’s deeper goal is to build real-world connections through shared artistic experience — particularly post-pandemic, as “people have gotten out of the habit of being with other people.”
“I think that’s part of our problem right now — we don’t have real-life experiences with each other,” she said. “That’s really why we wanted to pull this whole thing together and say, ‘Hey, let’s spend the weekend together.’”
And gathering together in community — differences and all — is rooted in the same cultural mix that birthed the traditions being celebrated. For example, Leahy said, clogging grew out of European, African-American and Native American folk dances in the Appalachian Mountains in the 19th century.
“The banjo came from Africa, the fiddle came from the Scots-Irish and the downbeat in dancing is definitely Native American,” she said. “These are a mix of peoples who brought their traditions and lived side-by-side. So it’s looking at how we can all come together and create something really beautiful.”
Though Trad Romp Wknd wraps up after three days, similar programming, based around both community participation and Americana arts, will continue beyond next weekend at the Foundry.
For starters, beginning Tuesday, Nov. 11, Leahy will lead a four-week clogging basics class, with Good providing live old-time music, at the Foundry. Looking ahead to March, plans are being made for more classes in traditional dance forms, tied to a social dance open to the community.
For Westhoff, the debut weekend offers a blueprint for what the Trad Romp could become.
“[This event] is very humble and modest, but you have to start somewhere,” he said. “Could we develop this idea with a shared network of really rad, talented people who want to be around Yellow Springs, and have some kind of annual gathering in traditional music, where you could learn stuff and do more than just attend a concert?”
Individual-day tickets for Trad Romp Wknd are $20 for Friday’s events, $20 for Saturday’s events, and $25 for The Mammals’ performance on Sunday; admission is $5 for students. All-weekend passes are also available — $55 for individuals, and $115 for families.
For more information on Trad Romp Wknd, or to buy tickets, go to http://www.bit.ly/TradRompWknd25. For more information on continuing clogging basics classes with Sharon Leahy beginning Nov. 11, email sharonleahy373@gmail.com.
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