The mood was high on March 11 at Fresco Restaurant, right off the square, as Fayetteville's TheatreSquared celebrated the announcement of its 2018-19 season with donors. And why wouldn't it be? The theater will move into its 13th season with a momentum few regional theaters ever imagine reaching. If those in attendance at the festivities were to walk a mere three or four blocks west, they would be standing at the site where TheatreSquared's new $31.5 million dollar facility is morphing slowly but surely into the gorgeous glass, concrete and wood-beamed building it's destined to become in time for the 2019-20 season.
The building-in-progress is a testament to the fans the theater has won in a little over a decade: the faithful patrons who number over 40,000 these days; the city of Fayetteville, which believes in the organization enough to grant a 25-year no-cost lease on the property where the new building is going up, a $3 million contribution to the building fund and a $3 million award through the Advertising and Promotion Commission; granters that include the Walton Family Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Arts; and national theater organizations like the American Theatre Wing, which recognized T2 in 2011 as "one of the nation's 10 most promising emerging professional theaters" and featured the theater in a documentary last summer.
FAQ
TheatreSquared
Season 13
“Once” — Aug. 22-Sept. 23. “A few years ago, Bob and I sat in a theater on Broadway and watched a production that we frankly loved,” says Amy Herzberg, T2 associate artistic director and co-founder, of the 2012 Tony Award-winning musical by John Carney. The show tells the romantic story of the artistic collaboration between two down-on-their luck musicians. “It had so much heart, music, high stakes and moments of pure joy — and the only thing we wished was that we could have seen it in a more intimate space. So this year, we thought — why not ours?”
“Skeleton Crew” — Oct. 10-Nov. 4. “Remember that name — critics have been comparing [Dominque Morisseau’s] work to that of Arthur Miller, and for good reason,” says Ford. “Her storytelling is just that brillant. Set in one of the last remaining auto parts factories in Detroit, we’ll see sparks fly on both the production line and in the company breakroom with this blistering new comedy-drama.”
“Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley” — Nov. 28-Dec. 30. “Those of you who know ‘Pride and Prejudice’ may recall the younger Bennet sister, Mary, who loves her books and has no patience at all for her older sisters’ obsession with romance,” says director of marketing and communications, Joanna Bell. “In this newly imagined, delightful and just a bit subversive sequel [by Lauren Gunderson] Mary will have her day.”
“Every Brilliant Thing” — Jan. 16-Feb. 10, 2019. “[This] is a truly beautiful, hilarious and deeply moving play about one person’s struggle with the highs and lows of life,” says Herzberg of the one-person play by Duncan McMillan (with Jonny Donahoe) that was a New York Times Critics’ pick.
“The Wolves” — Feb. 27-March 24, 2019. “I am really excited about our spring production [by Sarah DeLappe] — a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and called one of the best plays of the year by nearly a dozen media outlets,” says Morgan Hicks, director of education and program development and T2 co-founder. “From the safety of the suburbs, a girls’ soccer team navigates life’s big questions and wages their own tiny battles — with the ferocity of a pack of adolescent warriors.”
“The Legend of Georgia McBride” — May 1-26, 2019. “‘The Legend of Georgia McBride’ [by Matthew Lopez] tells the story of an Elvis impersonator who is running out of money and luck — especially when the owner of the bar where he performs decides to fire him and hire a drag show,” says Ford, noting that The New York Times called the rollicking show a “stitch-in-your-side, funny new comedy full of sass and good spirits.”
On the cusp of its last season in the Nadine Baum Studios, T2 finds itself in an indelible moment. For one last season, the theater will have one foot in the past and one foot planted firmly in the future.
"Not in my wildest dreams would I imagine that we would be building our dream theater at the scale that we're building it, with the extraordinary team of designers and architects that we have on board, with the kind of support that we're getting from every sector and region," says T2 Artistic Director and co-founder Bob Ford in a conversation two weeks after the donor event. "In the very beginning, we did say that we would start a capital plan to build our own theater, but I don't think we ever really believed that. 'Yeah, and then one day, we'll be this major force of new theater in Mid-America' -- it's one thing to say that, but to really visualize it? I don't think we really understood what it would like to see it realized and how much we have to pinch ourselves. Even now, I have to stare at that building site and convince myself this is actually happening."
Executive Director Martin Miller says the years in the current space have made T2 what it is today.
"We've discovered the shape of a T2 theater experience: a wide stage spilling out into the audience, with sheer proximity to the action for every audience member. Those are wonderful things, and, happily, we get to take them with us -- and amplify them -- in the new space."
Miller says the T2 team took its faithful audience into consideration when choosing the new season.
"Our audience has shown us that they deserve respect: They want smart plays, fresh takes and a diversity of voices, all well-produced," says Miller. "They aren't looking for safe or predictable. They're looking for something different. I'm reminded of the slogan, 'It's not TV, it's HBO' -- we hope they'll see the lineup and say, 'It's not theater, it's TheatreSquared!'
"In assembling the 2018-2019 slate, we read hundreds of plays. A few immediately resonated with desires we've heard and share: for playwrights and protagonists of color, for women's stories, for plays that are smart but also pure fun. Of course, we wanted to fall in love with every one that made the cut -- and we did."
Meanwhile, it seems Ford will need to use this last year in T2's original space to come to terms with the success his theater has found in such a short period of time.
"This was never something that I thought was going to happen in my lifetime, and now I'm leading an organization that employs 15 or 20 people with thousands of people coming to every show -- I'm still catching up with reality, " he says.
NAN What's Up on 04/01/2018