[2] Theatrevolution was started by theatre director Chambers Stevens, community organizer Ty Brown, Brenda Fowinkle, and Donald Capparella (who is still on the board today), as a way to raise awareness of current political issues.
After their first production of The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer, which dealt with the AIDS crisis, the company started to work with the State of Tennessee, dramatizing social issues for the judicial system.
[3] Anxious to get back to their theatrical roots, in 1988 Theatrevolution decided to produce a free Shakespeare play in Centennial Park in Nashville.
In 2006, the Festival performed Macbeth for 23,000 people through Shakespeare in the Park, TPAC's HOT program, and in rural Tennessee with the help of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Festival planned to return in the summer of 2020 with a production of What You Will (Twelfth Night), directed by Jim Warren, the Founding Artistic Director of the American Shakespeare Center, but this was cancelled due to COVID-19.