2013 Arkansas New Play Festival Begins Today

TheatreSquared presents the lineup for the 2013 Arkansas New Play Festival, the theatre's fifth annual celebration of bold new works for the stage.The festival will feature staged reading performances of four plays by professional playwrights, a showcase of ten-minute plays by Arkansas high school students, and Northwest Arkansas's seventh annual 24-Hour Play-Off.

For the first time, the Arkansas New Play Festival is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Tickets are $7 (staged reading performances), $10 (The 24 Hour Play-Off), or $30 for a New Play Pass including all festival events, and they can be reserved by calling the Walton Arts Center Box Office at (479) 443-5600 or online at theatre2.org. Through a new "Month of New Plays" partnership with the University of Arkansas Department of Drama, New Play Pass buyers may also add admission to six new work performances by UA students for just $10. Performances will take place at Walton Arts Center's Nadine Baum Studios (505 W. Spring St., Fayetteville). Each new play reading will be followed by a conversation with the playwright, director and cast.

"Four leading playwrights are bringing scripts in raw form to Northwest Arkansas this June," said T2 Artistic Director Robert Ford. "We're thrilled to match them with TheatreSquared's artists and audience and help shape these bold new works. If you love storytelling and great theatre, this is a weekend you won't want to miss."

Arkansas New Play Festival Performance Schedule:

Friday, June 14
6:30pm - Don Chipotle by Juan Francisco Villa ($7)
8:30pm - Raw Vision by Les Wade ($7)

Saturday, June 15
2:00pm - Arkansas Young Playwrights Showcase (Free)
6:30pm - If I Did This by E.M. Lewis ($7)
8:30pm - Swimming with Van Gogh by Susan Felder ($7)

Sunday, June 16
6:30pm - The 24 Hour Play-Off ($10)

A lineup of additional new play performances by UA Department of Drama students is available atdrama.uark.edu.

Professional New Play Lineup:
DON CHIPOTLE, by Juan Francisco Villa - Friday, June 14, 6:30pm
Two 11-year-old boys-a hero and his sidekick-set out on a quixotic quest through the streets of the Lower East Side to locate the missing Twin Towers. A raw, comic fable that draws on the Columbian-American experience in New York, this new play shines a bright light on social hypocrisies and the adventurous spirit of youth.

RAW VISION, by Les Wade - Friday, June 14, 8:30pm
An African-American brother and sister, both 30-something, live a ramshackle existence well off the grid in southern Louisiana. She is the brilliant, if deeply conflicted, caretaker of her artist brother, whose paintings have recently begun to turn up on the New Orleans art scene. When an outside interloper - who can't seem to keep his story straight - insinuates himself into their close-knit world, all three lives are changed forever. A gorgeously poetic drama, Raw Vision will remind many of the Oscar-nominated film, Beasts of the Southern Wild, in its heartfelt portrayal of a stubbornly offbeat way of life.

IF I DID THIS, by E.M. Lewis - Saturday, June 15, 6:30pm
A brainy, edge-of-your-seat thriller about a ghost writer, an acquitted murder suspect who is his subject, and the literary editor who may (or may not) be his best friend in the world. A brilliantly theatrical jigsaw puzzle, this play goes to the heart of the question, "What is truth?" - or maybe, "Whose 'truth' is really true?" Part film noir, part theatrical tease, If I Did This will toy with your perceptions and touch your heart.

SWIMMING WITH VAN GOGH, by Susan Felder - Saturday, June 15, 8:30pm
Set in a lighthouse just off the coast of Lake Superior, Swimming with Van Gogh tells the story of a middle-aged painter who stumbles into sudden prominence, only to come face-to-face with her own worse doubts-not to mention an old flame, a mid-career artist who knows just how to keep her off-balance. When an adoring young art student invades her lighthouse retreat, the chemistry becomes overpowering. This play takes a profound look at the possibility, and impossibility, of originality and renewal as an artist.

Special Performances:
ARKANSAS YOUNG PLAYWRIGHTS SHOWCASE - Saturday, June 15, 2:00pm
In partnership with the University of Arkansas Brown Chair of Literacy, TheatreSquared is proud to present, for the fourth year, the Arkansas Young Playwrights Showcase. Students from across the state have been invited to submit scripts, and six will be selected for public readings at the Arkansas New Play Festival.

THE 24-HOUR PLAY-OFF - Sunday, June 16, 6:30pm
TheatreSquared is partnering with Fayetteville-based Ceramic Cow Productions to present the Northwest Arkansas 24-Hour Play-Off, a perennial favorite for artists and audiences alike. Teams of artists will write, rehearse, and perform a new ten-minute play, all within the space of 24 hours, in competition for a grand prize sponsored by local businesses.

Through a new partnership with the University Theatre at the University of Arkansas, the 2013 Arkansas New Play Festival will be offered together with six additional student performances scheduled throughout June by professional artists-in-training at the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. A $40 "Month of New Plays" Package will include admission to all TheatreSquared's Arkansas New Play Festival events and to student performances scheduled at 7:30pm on June 7, 8, 19, 20, 22, 23, 26, and 27. A complete listing of Department of Drama performances offered during the Month of New Plays is available at drama.uark.edu.

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