Arkansas New Play Festival - Mark Brown

The Arkansas New Play Festival Update

Well, it’s not really an update since I haven’t written anything about The Arkansas New Play Festival but I couldn’t think of anything witty.

In the Dallas airport with Mark Jacobson

I’m here in Fayetteville, Arkansas at TheatreSquared for the previously mentioned Arkansas New Play Festival, to workshop my play The Quest for Don Quixote. And it’s going swimmingly. I’m fortunate to be in the featured play slot. That means the show gets 2 1/2 weeks of rehearsal before the first public reading. And mine isn’t just a reading. It’s a full-fledged staging of the show. Actors off book. Costumes. Lights. A wee bit of a set.

Mark Shanahan pontificating

After the first read-thru I made a huge cut in the first act and moved some scenes around. It seems like it’s going to work well. David Emmes, founding Artistic Director at South Coast Rep, had suggested I make some snips in the first part of the act so it was already in the back of my mind. (David also said he thinks I have a wonderfully theatrical piece that should do very well. Just saying).

Our first stab at a horse. (Comment courtesy of my old friend Ray Wagner)

Along the way I’ve been cutting, moving, and rewriting. Which is exactly what should happen at a play festival.

I’m lucky to have some friends working on the project. My dear friend Mark Shanahan is directing and he has been invaluable. Wait. I think I mean unvaluable but that’s not a word.

My good friend Bruce Warren is knocking Sancho out of the park, and new friend Mark Jacobson has captured the neurosis of his character who is more than loosely based on me. Okay. It is me.

Bruce Warren hard at work.

Bill Rogers is Quixote, Jason Engstrom is Jeffry, Liz France is the Housekeeper, and Lupe Campos is the Niece. Ashtyn Nilsen, who did music for TheatreSquared’s production of Around the World in 80 Days, is composing music for the show.

Me and the lovely Ashtyn Nilsen

In the “Theatre is a Small World” category, Jacqueline Cox, who is the lighting designer, discovered a week into rehearsal that she designed lights for a production of my show China – The Whole Enchilada in Birmingham, Alabama. Go figure.