WORDS / STEVE HINTZ

If you think you have to live  in a major metropolis to be on the cutting edge of creative theatrical endeavors, think again. Enclaves all over the country spawn brilliance on a regular basis and for those folks living in northwest Arkansas, your enclave is getting more and more brilliant by the day. TheatreSquared, NWA’s premiere theatre company hosts their 5th annual Arkansas New Play Festival on June 14-16 at the Walton Arts Center’s Nadine Baum studios in Fayetteville and  the Arkansas Repertory Theatre in Little Rock.

Every year for the past five years, Theatre Squared has held this showcase of cutting-edge writers, directors and actors in the midst of the creative process. Each of the plays is carefully selected through a referral process where directors across the country, familiar with the Arkansas demographic suggest writers and works that they’ve come across. Theatre Squared sifts through the plays at various stages of development and select the most promising ones, which are passed through a 5-6 day workshop with actors and directors who are brought in from around the country to help get the script to a point where it’s ready to showcase.

That’s where you come in. Audience members engage in a conversation with the writers, actors and directors to discuss which parts are working and which ones need to work their way out. The first two plays, Raw Vision by the University of Arkansas’ professor Les Wade, and If I Did This by E.M. Lewis  top this year’s slate of works.

The festival will present 4 staged readings at $7 a piece. The 24 hr. play festival, put on by the University of Arkansas’ drama department is going on the same weekend and costs $10 to get in. A pass for all five events is $30 and if you add on an additional $10, you can see all of the university’s new plays the previous and following weekends.

VISIT: THEATRESQUARED.ORG

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