The Arkansas New Play Festival is Set For This Weekend

TheatreSquared will host three in-person readings of new works in its first installment of the 2021 Arkansas New Play Festival on August 22, 2021. Additional Festival offerings will continue on digital platforms throughout the fall.

These readings serve as a capstone showcase for the playwrights who have spent the previous weeks hosted by T2 developing their new scripts. Featured works will include FLEX by Arkansan playwright Candrice Jones, a filmed showcase of Remedios by the LatinX Theatre Project (LXTP) and The Heart's Desire by José Cruz González-whose play American Mariachi is opening this week on TheatreSquared's West Theatre stage.

"We're so excited to bring in Candrice Jones and José Cruz González to Northwest Arkansas to share their work and ideas with our audience, and to celebrate this new work by the LatinX Theatre Project," said T2's director of new play development Dexter Singleton.

A screening of the short film Remedios will kick off the festival followed by a talkback with members of LXTP at 1pm. At 3:30pm there will be a reading of FLEX followed by a talkback. Finally, after a break for dinner, at 7:00pm The Heart's Desire will begin its performance followed by a talkback. Additional virtual and in-person events are being planned for an extended festival continuing into the fall. The theatre is hosting United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo as its 2021 Artist in Residence for the development of her new work, We Were There When Jazz Was Invented.

The showcase will take place in Walker Hall at TheatreSquared, 477 West Spring Street in Fayetteville. Tickets are extremely limited and cost $10 per reading, or $30 for a festival pass that gives patrons access to all the events on August 22nd and future events throughout the fall.
About the Arkansas New Play Festival Now in its fourteenth year, TheatreSquared's Arkansas New Play Festival seeks to champion diverse plays that address important social, economic, and racial issues; to be a place our community can see themselves reflected on stage, and to present socially conscious new work. The festival has launched more than 60 new plays and now allows for artistic collaboration in both digital and in-person workshop formats. During 2020, the Arkansas New Play Festival workshop for Russian Troll Farm by Sarah Gancher launched that play toward being named as New York Times Best Theater of the year.
The 2021 Arkansas New Play Festival is supported by Barbara Shadden, in memory of Harry Shadden, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.