Click on the posters for the individual shows for more information.
*Students, please use your uark email when registering.
Come celebrate new works, new worlds, and new theatrical archetypes being created at the University of Arkansas! The University of Arkansas Department of Theatre invites you to the ArkType New Works Festival (Jan 29 - Feb 13, 2021). The ArkType New Works Festival features plays-in-process by current M.F.A. playwrights, including Adrienne Dawes, Brendan Beseth, Lauren Ferebee, and Sarah Loucks, as well as a short new play by Assistant Professor, and Head of the M.F.A. Program in Playwriting, John Walch.
The 2021 ArkType New Works Line-up Includes (all times are CST):
This Bitch: Esta Sangre Quiero
Friday, January 29 at 7:30pm*
By Adrienne Dawes (2nd year M.F.A. Candidate in Playwriting)
Directed by Guest Director Estefania Fadul
Music by Eric Johnson and Edwin Green (2nd MFA Candidate in Acting)
Music Direction by Nehemiah Luckett
When Diana, a ruthless and power-hungry Pilates influencer, learns her social media manager Teodoro is hooking up with her makeup artist Madeinusa, it sparks bitter jealousy. Even though it would be social suicide for her to date someone with zero followers, Diana finds herself falling madly in love but if she can’t have Teodoro . . . no one can! This Bitch: Esta Sangre Quiero is a bilingual Gen Z comedy inspired by Lope de Vega’s Golden Age epic masterpiece “El perro del hortelano.”
*Can’t make it to the live event January 29th? A recording of “This Bitch” will be available online February 1-8, 2021.
To request access, please visit: Adrienne to provide link…
2084: a short play for Zoom
Friday, February 5 and Saturday, February 6 at 7:00pm
By John Walch (Assistant Professor, Head, M.F.A. Program in Playwriting)
Directed by: Huan Bui (2nd year M.F.A. Candidate in Directing)
This short drama/comedy (~15 minutes) is intended as a curtain opener for the evening. Flirting with Orwell’s classic novel, 1984, the play contemplates a world where we are constantly surveilled. A disgruntled customer, who believes they have been cursed by their past and doomed by Zoom, zooms into Zoom customer service to try and get a distressing video from their past dropped in the memory hole and deleted forever…even though they signed the Terms and Conditions.
We’re All Soldiers in a Strange War
Friday, February 5 at 7:30pm
By Brendan Beseth (3rd year M.F.A. Candidate in Playwriting)
Directed by Kate Frank
Set in a nightmare, dreamscape of our present, where nothing makes sense, where everything people want has the price of life as we know it. Harold is trying to find a meaning to his existence.
S1ST3RS
Saturday, February 6 at 7:30pm
Written and Directed by Lauren Ferebee (3rd year M.F.A. Candidate in Playwriting)
Music and Composition by Matt Magerkurth
A collaboration with Experimental Media Arts in the Art Department
Digital Art and Media by Jared Lambert
Cinematography by Keaton Grimmett
Art Direction and Additional Collaboration by Mischa Hutchings
An experimental multimedia re-mix of memory and longing through the lens of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters.
2084: a short play for Zoom
Friday, February 12 and Saturday, February 13 at 7:00pm
By John Walch (Assistant Professor, Head, M.F.A. Program in Playwriting)
Directed by: Huan Bui (2nd year M.F.A. Candidate in Directing)
This short drama/comedy flirts with Orwell’s classic 1984 as it contemplates a world where we are constantly surveilled. A disgruntled customer, who believes they have been cursed by their past and doomed by Zoom, zooms into Zoom customer service to try and get an distressing video from their past dropped in the memory hole and deleted forever…even though they signed the Terms and Conditions.
Untitled Tornado Play
Friday, February 12 and Saturday, February 13 at 7:30pm
By Sarah Loucks (2ndyear M.F.A. Candidate in Playwriting)
Directed by: Lacy Post (2nd year M.F.A. Candidate in Directing)
In the wake of a devastating tornado wrecking homes in a small town in Iowa, the community contemplates how they want to rebuild and reimagine the values their homes will be built on.