Festival to Stage New Plays, Syrian-themed Romeo & Juliet

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Amy Evans, of Brooklyn, N.Y., and her play The Champion follows a story of R&B singer Nina Simone snowed in a cafe in 1962 North Carolina.

Starting the weekend of June 17 and through June 26, TheatreSquared is going to be showing off all the fresh new playwright talent the U.S. and Arkansas has to offer.

Four brand new plays and a debut of an adaptation of William Shakespeare’sRomeo and Juliet set in Damascus, Syria (see our Q&A with the playwright, Kholoud Sawaf below) will be performed and workshopped over the course of the next two weeks for the Arkansas New Play Festival.

As it is a new play festival, the plays will be limited in production. The plays will be staged readings, so actors will be reading from scripts with some scripted movements and occasionally some costume or prop use. After each reading, attendees will get the opportunity to join in on a feedback session with the playwright.

Courtesy Photo Little Rock playwright David J. Eshelman and composers Charlie T. Crow and Charley Sandage will be showing their folk-musical-in-progress, A Little War In Little Rock.

All access passes to the Arkansas New Play Festival are $45 and include a company reception catered by Whole Foods. Individual tickets to readings are $10 and tickets to Andromeda range from $15 to $25. The Young Playwright Showcase is free. Tickets are available at arkansasnewplayfest.com.

Andromeda, a comic drama by Gayle Pazerski of Pittsburg, follows the story of two retirement-age women vying for a job at a planetarium. Alma, a former nurse, offers to help Myra with her ailing husband. There are four total performances scheduled, with an evening and matinee showing each weekend.

The Champion, by Amy Evans of Brooklyn, N.Y., is set in 1962 with Nina Simone and her band snowed in a small-town cafe in North Carolina. The close quarters soon flare up arguments and secrets begin to come up, and the unfriendly territory leads to life-changing decisions. Readings are scheduled for 2 p.m. at Crystal Bridges June 18, and 5:30 p.m. at TheatreSquared June 25.

A Little War in Little Rock, a folk-musical in progress by Arkansans David J. Eshelman and composers Charley Sandage and Charlie T. Crow, depicts the time when Arkansas had two governors backed by their own militia in 1874. Helena, a former slave, tries to run her boarding house amid the chaos. The only reading will be 5:30 p.m. Friday, June 26 at TheatreSquared.

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Austin, Texas, based Deborah Yarchun’s play Tectonic Mélange deals with the oil business of North Dakota and the relationship between an old farm couple sitting atop a shale oil motherlode and an environmentalist and geologist.

Tectonic Mélange, by Deborah Yarchun of Austin, Texas, is set in the boom-or-bust pace of the oil business of the North Dakota frontier. When Steve, an ardent environmentalist, approaches Tara, an accomplished geologist and oil explorer, its unclear whether his intentions are pure. A farm couple’s marriage is tested when they’re informed of a motherlode of shale oil beneath their property. This award-winning new play will be read twice, 4 p.m. June 18 at Crystal Bridges and 5:30 p.m. June 24 at TheatreSquared.

For its sixth year, the Young Playwrights Showcase will feature staged reading of Independence, a play written by 13-year old Charlotte McCombs. The show starts at 4:30 p.m. Sunday, June 26.

Romeo and Juliet: Damascus

In mid-May, TheatreSquared received a $250,000 grant from the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Arts for the production of Romeo & Juliet:Damascus. The organization supports “organizations whose work advances relationships, increases understanding, and reduces bias between Muslim and non-Muslim communities through immersive arts and culture projects.”

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Syrian director Kholoud Sawaf will be debuting her adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet set in modern day Damascus, Syria. The project received a $250,000 grant for its production from the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Arts in May.

Syrian director and UA graduate Kholoud Sawaf is heading the project. We got the chance to speak with Sawaf about her vision for Romeo and Juliet: Damascus:

TFW: Could you tell us a little bit about your Syrian background and how it’s going to influence Romeo & Juliet: Damascus?

SAWAF: I was born and raised in Damascus and lived in that city for most of my life. I then moved with my family to the United Arab Emirates and got my B.A from the American University of Sharjah. I worked between Damascus and the UAE until I moved to the United States in 2012 for my M.F.A in Directing.

My background, combined with my growing understanding of the United States, will naturally play a huge role in helping me convey to a western society a deeper understanding of Damascus society – the complexity of that world in all its aspects.

TFW: Why choose Romeo and Juliet?

SAWAF: I am, like all Syrians, tired of the ongoing war and events that have been happening back in our country and tearing up our city and society. We are desperate for a story to feed our hearts and souls. From this feeling, the love story, Romeo and Juliet, seemed really attractive to me, and so I have attached my city’s name to Shakepeare’s title.

TFW: What are your aspirations for producing Romeo & Juliet: Damascus? What are you hoping to achieve?

This project for us serves an outreach purpose: to extend an invitation, start a discussion, raise questions, take initiative around the idea of building bridges between communities, trying to narrow the gap in understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims. This is clearly a need in our time and in our society, and the arts should be part – even take a leading role – in meeting that need.

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Gayle Pazerski’s play Andromeda follows the story of two retirement age women fighting for a low paying job at a planetarium. The play will be shown four times throughout the the Arkansas New Play Festival.

The collaboration and support offered by the Doris Duke Foundation are a perfect fit for this project and its mission. Doris Duke believes in improving the lives of individuals and communities through artistic work. So we are thrilled to have their sponsorship, and the idea of attaching a well-known story to a much lesser-known culture seems to be a great way to achieve our shared goals.

TFW: How will the play be modified from the original?

SAWAF: There are a lot of questions that come up while approaching any Shakespeare play in a new setting. While his themes are astonishingly universal, there are always questions about the specificity of the world. In our workshop we’ll be dealing with questions like: how do the major characters in Romeo and Juliet exist in the world of Damascus; how do we tackle specific references in the play to locations and religious references; how are the overall themes and structure of the play affected. The workshop at this year’s Arkansas New Play Festival is just the first phase of the project – it’ll be a good chance for us to begin exploring these questions, as we look at the text through the lens of modern Damascus.

TFW: What are you looking forward to about the play and its preview/debut at the New Play Festival?

SAWAF: I’m excited to dig into the script and look at the story through the lens of modern Damascus, and re-structure things accordingly. The New Play Fest staged reading offers us a fantastic chance to try out some ideas, see how they read with an audience, and get their feedback. We are not re-writing Shakespeare’s words, but we are finding creative ways to handle them, to use them help inform the world of the play. I’m also excited to be collaborating with such a terrific group of actors and musicians – some with a Middle Eastern background. They’ll bring great insight to the story and to the world of the play and help us unfold it in this strikingly different setting.