A renewed partnership agreement between a local theater group and the Walton Arts Center is designed to benefit not only both organizations, but area students and teachers looking for more exposure to the theater arts.
TheatreSquared and the Walton Arts Center announced the "enhanced" three-year agreement in a statement Monday.
Since TheatreSquared's creation in 2005, the group of local, professional actors have delivered four theater productions a year at the arts center's 150-seat Studio Theatre at Nadine Baum Studios across West Avenue from the performing arts center.
"TheatreSquared provides the kind of high-quality, locally produced shows that complement Walton Arts Center's programming," said Jodi Beznoska, the arts center's vice president of communications and a TheatreSquared board member.
The arts center will provide box-office services for TheatreSquared and assist in cross-promotion and marketing. In exchange, TheatreSquared staff will continue to use the Studio Theatre and also create study guides and provide in-school workshops for area students of all ages, arts center spokeswoman Beth Goodwin said Monday afternoon.
She said the study guides will be for elementary, middle and high school levels and will complement the arts center's existing arts-in-education programming. The program trains teachers to use the arts and exposes students to the arts in furthering their education in study areas such as literature or science.
"One of our big goals in Northwest Arkansas is to bring kids into the theater arts," Goodwin said. "This agreement takes the partnership to the next level and shows the support of local talent and fosters new performances."
For its first production this year, TheaterSquared has scheduled its version of Alfred Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps" Sept. 3-19. Theatergoers will also see in December performances of "Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some)."
In February, the company will put on a locally written musical performance about an African-American drifter's experience in North Arkansas during the summer of 1918, called "Sundown Town."
The final production comes from Broadway. Neil LaBute's "Reasons to be Pretty" will debut in mid-April.
"TheatreSquared exists to serve our artists and audiences," the company's managing director, Martin Miller, said in a news release. "This new partnership will benefit both. We will be able to focus more time and resources on bringing great artists from across the region and nation into Northwest Arkansas."