Courtesy Photo
The Arkansas New Play Festival brings playwrights to Fayetteville and Little Rock to workshop and present new works before they are produced. Bob Ford (far right) is the playwright for “Fault.”
Consider yourself the artsy type? Well buckle up, because the next two weekends probably couldn’t handle any more events and performances than what’s already been planned.
Two major regional festivals, the Arkansas New Play Festival along with the Artosphere Festival — starting this weekend on Thursday, June 18 — will be hosting several performances of exciting new theatre and classical music.
In its fifth year in Arkansas, the New Play Festival will be held at Theatre Squared, 505 W Spring St. in Fayetteville. Full access passes to the Arkansas New Play Festival are $40, and will grant you access to staged readings of four new plays and a fully staged production of “The Quest for Don Quixote.”
Along with the main events, the festival will feature the 24-Hour Play-Off where teams of artists will write, rehearse and perform new ten-minute plays—all in just 24 hours. After the performances The audience is invited to help select a popular choice winner in addition to a judged grand prize winner.
On Saturday, June 27 at 5:30 p.m. will be the Young Playwright’s Showcase, which will feature several newly fashioned 10-minute plays from students throughout Arkansas. The top submissions will be selected for mentorship from professional playwrights and public readings at the Arkansas New Play Festival.
Single tickets are also available and range from $7-$15. Reserve your passes or single tickets online, or by calling Tickets Northwest Arkansas at (479) 443-5600. However, seating is very limited.
FAULT
FRIDAY, JUNE 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Single Tickets $8
Written by Bob Ford, “Fault” will be the first play read during the festival on Friday. According to the synopsis, the play is set in the aftermath of a severe quake along the New Madrid Fault. Gabriel Baptiste, star safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers, defies a government quarantine and returns alone to his family farm in the Arkansas River Valley. Discovered by a scientist with secrets of her own, they’re drawn into a dangerous game of mutual recrimination.
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Qui Nguyen, playwright of “Dust.”
Ford is also the artistic director co-founder for Theatre Squared. His most recent play, “Look Away,” premiered at T2 in February after workshops at the Arkansas New Play Festival and Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s Southern Writers Project.
DUST
SATURDAY June 20 at 2 p.m.
SUNDAY June 28 at 7:30 p.m.
Single Tickets $8
Written by Qui Nguyen, Arkansas native and 2014 Sundance Institute Fellow, “Dust” is a cross-cultural coming of age story that follows Thuy, a girl who sets out to find her ex-G.I. father, who has kept her existence a secret from his wife for 16 years. Blending live hip-hop, raw emotion and wry wit,“Dust” recasts the American dream through the eyes of an Amer-Asian teenager.
Nguyen’s relevant, sometimes geeky and savvy writing style has earned him accolades from the likes of The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. His company, Vampire Cowboys, is the only professional theatre organization to be officially sponsored by NY Comic Con.
THE DINGDONG
SATURDAY June 20 at 7:30 p.m.
FRIDAY June 26 at 5 p.m.
Single Tickets $8
In Mark Shanahan’s adaptation of Georges Feydeau’s “Le Dindon,” the play is about fidelity, kind of. The play follows husband and wife Valentin and Lucy as their marriage is put to the test by several suitors over the course of a crazy night at a Parisian hotel. Through it all, the two might learn a thing or two about the secret to a happy marriage.
Shanahan makes his return to Theatre Squared after having directed the Around the World in 80 Days last season. Recently, he was nominated by the Mystery Writer’s Association of America for the Edgar Award for his stage adaptation of “The Chronology Protection Case.”
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TheatreSquared brings professional actors to workshop each new script at the Festival. Pictured here, John T. Smith, Bryce Kemph, Sean Patrick Reilly, Kevin C. Fox, and Alyx Clous performed in a staged reading of EM Lewis’s “True Story” (2013).
UNCLE
SUNDAY JUNE 21 at 2 p.m.
SUNDAY JUNE 28 at 5 p.m.
Single Tickets $8
“Uncle” is a comedy about an academic sabbatical gone terribly awry. From Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award nominee Lee Blessing (A Walk in the Woods), the story follows Dr. Paul Waymiller as he nears a “publish or perish” deadline on his book about Chekov’s masterpiece, Uncle Vanya. With his career on the ropes, he refuses to be distracted by anything—be it his imminent divorce, Vanya himself, or the interdimensional wormhole that’s opened up in his backyard.
Lee Blessing has written over 30 plays. Blessing’s plays have earned two Steinberg/American Theater Critics Association awards as well as Obie, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk and L.A. Critics Association awards.
THE QUEST FOR DON QUIXOTE
THURSDAY, JUNE 25 at 8 p.m.
FRIDAY, JUNE 26 AT 8 p.m.
SATURDAY, JUNE 27 AT 8 p.m.
SATURDAY, JUNE 27 AT 2 p.m.
SUNDAY, JUNE 28 AT 2 p.m.
Single Tickets $10-$20
In this adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes’ classic by Mark Brown, the story starts with Playwright Ben Eisenberg sitting in a Starbucks the day before Don Quixote rehearsal begins. The problem is, none of it is written, and Ben is pretty much screwed. But then “whether from a stroke of genius or a near-lethal dosage of caffeine and Xanax,” the Starbucks transforms, and Don Quixote arises.
Brown is playwright for “Around the World in 80 Days,” which been produced around the world, from Off-Broadway to Baridhara Dhaka, Bangladesh and has been translated into Turkish.
