It’s in this arena that TheatreSquared is determined to buck the trend. A little over 50 percent of T2’s permanent production staff are women. Of course, gender parity is not the only area where T2 strives to make advancements. Its recently launched apprenticeship program aims to give opportunities to underrepresented voices, and its website is clear about its hiring objectives.
Read MoreT2 Tiger Style! scenic designer Chika Shimizu says she had never been to a play before she went to college in California. Raised “in the countryside” in Japan by a family whose business was an embroidery factory, she did already have a deep love for music, reading, drawing and writing, but access to stage performances was nowhere to be found. Her passion for writing led her to pursue a career in writing children’s books. Then, she saw that college production, and she was hooked.
Read More“It just makes me feel so peaceful being here,” said Tiger Style! costume designer Yuan Yuan Ling . “I wish that all my work was this easy. I have worked with so many theaters, and this is the first theater I feel I really love. I feel like everybody is not just professional but also passionate with whatever they're doing. And this is something that's so important to me, because it makes me trust theater again. For a while, I almost didn’t trust theater anymore — financially, a lot of theaters are not running powerfully enough. Even when I work for LA theaters that have so many employees, [you get] people just coming for a paycheck, they're not passionate. Being here, I’m just really moved by the passion.”
Read MoreFor people interested in a career in the arts, TheatreSquared’s apprenticeship program can be enormously beneficial. The current class of T2 apprentices told us a little bit about themselves and what they hope to get out of the program — and what they’ve already gotten out of it, two months in.
Read More“It’s specifically focused on under-represented voices — that’s in the grant language, and that’s also deeply tied to the reason the apprenticeship program was [conceived],” says Dike, who says it was T2’s General Manager Shannon Jones who first raised the idea of reaching out to that community.
“One of the best ways we can make an impact as an organization is to build a population of traditionally underrepresented theater makers,” notes Jones. “In launching an early career, BIPOC-focused apprentice program, we can not only provide opportunities, we can also strengthen our core of professional artists in Northwest Arkansas. Also, whether someone stays on with us here, or whether they move on to other opportunities in the field, we're staying true not only to our mission of broadening access, we're also helping to educate and cultivate future leaders in the American theater. Building that base at our theater and here in Northwest Arkansas can have a great impact, and also helps us to learn about ourselves as an organization and how we want to advance our community.”
Read MoreTheatreSquared (T2) will produce the co-world premiere of FLEX by Candrice Jones, an Arkansas native and winner of the 2020 Steinberg Playwright Award, as the final production in its Season 16 lineup. Recently workshopped at the 2021 Arkansas New Play Festival, Flex will debut in full production alongside the 2022 Festival. Performances are scheduled June 19- July 24, 2022.
FLEX tells the story of a girls’ high school basketball team from Plainnole, Arkansas. It’s 1997, and the women of the Lady Train team are inspired by the successes of the WNBA. With aspirations of going pro, they must first navigate the pressures of being young, Black, and female in rural Arkansas. Will their fouls off the court tear their team apart? Or can they keep their pact to stick together through hell or high water? This powerful new play celebrates the fierce athleticism of women’s basketball with all the adrenaline and swagger of a four-quarter game.
