TheatreSquared is currently putting the finishing touches on another successful season of locally-produced theatre with their current show, “Next to Normal” but the company is already looking ahead to next season.
Artistic Director Robert Ford and Managing Director Martin Miller this week announced the lineup for TheatreSquared’s 8th season, set to feature five plays along with another installment of the annual Arkansas New Play Festival.
The season will include an original play by T2’s own Robert Ford, The Spritualist, Pulitzer Prize finalist and Obie Award winner, 4,000 Miles, Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol, Pulitzer Prize-Winner Good People, and the William Shakespear’s classic, Hamlet.
For Ford, putting together a Theatre season is all about the experiences the shows create.
“We understand why people go to the theatre,” said Ford. “You come for an experience that’s uncommon. The immediacy of the room, the skill of the performers, the quality of the set, and the story itself — each is crucial to achieve something exceptional. And we’ve brought these five shows together because they add up to a season of remarkable experiences.”
The season will begin in August of 2013, and will run though June of 2014.
Subscriptions start at $84 and can be purchased by calling the Walton Arts Center at 479-571-2785 or by visiting theatre2.org/subscribe.
Descriptions provided by TheatreSquared
The Spiritualist
Description: The 2013/14 season launches with the World Premiere of The Spritualist, a new comic drama by Artistic Director Robert Ford. The play introduces Rosemary Dunn, an English widow who cooks for the school lunch service and communes with the spirits of dead composers. When a crusading American newspaperman tries to unmask her as a fraud, he finds more to the so-called spiritualist than meets the eye. Inspired by true events, The Spiritualist reveals an unlikely intersection between art and commerce, sanity and the hope for transcendence. Directed by Kevin C. Fox (Sundown Town, The Fall of the House) and featuring Amy Herzberg as Rosemary Dunn. Recommended for ages 13 and up.
Dates: Aug. 29-Sept. 15, 2013
4,000 Miles
Description: The season continues with 4,000 Miles, the 2012 Pulitzer Prize finalist and Obie Award-winner by Amy Herzog. After a disastrous coast-to-coast bike ride, 21-year-old college dropout Leo arrives at his communist 91-year-old grandmother’s Greenwich Village apartment. Over a month’s time, these unlikely roommates find each other at turns infuriating and bewildering—but ultimately discover unexpected kinship in this humorous and critically acclaimed portrayal of two outsiders finding their way in the world. Recommended for ages 13 and up.
Dates: Sept. 26-Oct. 13, 2013
A Christmas Carol
Description: For the holiday season, T2 presents a new, original stage adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Shrewd and heartless Ebeneezer Scrooge, who spends his workdays scorning joy and saving shillings in Victorian London, is deeply unsettled by the appearance of four ghosts at his bedside on Christmas Eve. Dickens’ classic tale of redemption, rediscovered each year by generations of families, is newly re-imagined for the stage in a holiday gift for Arkansas audiences of every age and walk of life. Recommended for all ages.
Dates: Dec. 5-29, 2013
Good People
Description: In 2014, Season 8 continues with Pulitzer Prize-Winner David Lindsay-Abaire’s Good People, recipient of the 2011 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. In South Boston, sharp-tongued single-mom Margie has lost her job at the Dollar Store. Scrambling to make ends meet, she tracks down an old high-school flame—who is now successful, married and living well—but a favor turns to blackmail when a dark secret surfaces in this humor-laced new drama. Recommended for ages 13 and up.
Dates: Feb. 13–Mar. 9, 2014
Hamlet
Description: The 2013/14 Subscription Series concludes with TheatreSquared’s new production of Hamlet, by William Shakespeare. The king is dead—murdered by his brother, who claims the throne and the widowed queen. The world moves on, but Prince Hamlet cannot, and vows to take revenge. Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy is equal parts ghost story, political intrigue, doomed romance and murder mystery, driven by one of literature’s most intriguing, enigmatic and controversial characters. Recommended for ages 13 and up.
Dates: April 10–May 4, 2014
Arkansas New Play Festival
Description: The 2014 Arkansas New Play Festival, Arkansas’s premiere celebration of new works for the stage, will be held June 12-15, 2014, with dates and titles for the celebration of new works to be announced in February 2014. Now in its sixth year, the festival seeks to give voice to emerging playwrights whose timely and relevant stories resonate with the shifting demographics of mid-America, and will be staged both at T2’s home venue in Fayetteville and at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre in Little Rock.
Dates: June 12-15, 2014
