On February 17, TheatreSquared is partnering with Woman-Run, an initiative of Wright, Lindsey & Jennings, for a workshop designed to sharpen the skills of women seeking funding for their business ideas. Participants will gain confidence, develop their pitches, and learn how to navigate the unique business challenges facing women and minority business owners.

Barrier Breakers is built around the findings of a 2018 study called “We Ask Men to Win and Women Not to Lose: Closing the Gender Gap in Startup Funding”, written by researchers from Columbia and Harvard Business Schools. Women own an estimated 38% of businesses in the U.S. but only receive roughly 2% of venture funding. That number fell to 1.9% in 2021.

Researchers found that investors tended to ask men promotion-focused questions like, “How do you plan to monetize this?” while women were instead asked prevention-focused questions, like “How long will it take you to break even?” They also found, however, that when women turned the question to focus instead on a promotion-based solution, the math changed, and their share of venture capital investments greatly increased.

Lights up. Night. April 3, 1968. Room 306, The Lorraine Motel, Memphis, Tennessee.

The stage directions that introduce Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop are simple – but their import is weighty. Hall’s play imagines the last night of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life. He’s just delivered one of his most lauded speeches, "I’ve Been to the Mountaintop", and is struggling to write his next, when there’s a knock at the door; his encounter with a mysterious woman, sent to deliver him coffee, sends his world into a tailspin.

TheatreSquared’s production of The Mountaintop – by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Katori Hall – opens on January 19 in T2’s West Theatre (477 W. Spring St., Fayetteville) and runs through February 13. Tickets range from $20-$54, and can be purchased by calling (479) 777-7477 or by visiting theatre2.org.

Thanks to sponsorship support from the Walmart Foundation, TheatreSquared has just released a limited quantity of $10 orchestra seats for community members for every performance of A Christmas Carol this season.
Fifty tickets are now available to each performance and may be reserved on a first come, first serve basis, online or by phone beginning immediately.

"We are profoundly grateful to the Walmart Foundation for their leadership support of the Lights Up! for Access program, which has helped us to bring tens of thousands of community members to the theatre who may otherwise have been unable to attend," said Executive Director Martin Miller. "It’s an incredible gift to make live, professional theatre more accessible to all—especially in the holiday season!"