As a graduate student at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, award-winning playwright and Hot Springs native Samuel Brett Williams got some good advice. His professor told him to write about Arkansas.
“I started doing that, and everything kind of opened up,” said Williams, whose plays have been produced in New York City, Los Angeles and even Moscow, Russia.
Now Williams is gearing up for his Arkansas debut with the Red Door Studios production of Derby Day, which began Thursday at Low Key Arts, 118 Arbor St. in Hot Springs. Performances will continue this week at 2:30 p.m. today and at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. The last show in the run will be at 2:30 p.m. May 10.
Set in a luxury box at Oaklawn Park on Derby Day, the play is loosely based on Williams’ father and his father’s two brothers. After burying their recently departed father, the Ballard Brothers spend the day at the races — betting, drinking, cursing and fighting among themselves until they’ve torn everything apart, including their relationships with one another.
“They just destroy everything,” Williams said. “The set is almost a metaphor for the family they wish they could have, and then at the end of the day, it’s just completely in shambles.”
There is a “glimmer” of hope at the end, though, he said.
The three brothers are played by Kevin Day, Matthew Ham and Joshua Williams. Miranda Hood Brewer plays Becky, the waitress.
Williams, a graduate of Crossgate Christian Academy in Hot Springs, frequented Oaklawn in his youth with his dad and uncles.
“I was always excited by it all when I was a kid, and I still like the horses today because of that,” Williams said. “I’ve always just really enjoyed it.”
After graduating as valedictorian from Crossgate, Williams attended Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, where he majored in English and political science. He taught seventh- and eighth-grade English for a year at Crossgate, then applied for the graduate playwriting program at Rutgers University, despite having no previous experience with theater.
“I was intrigued with the theater,” he said. “I just didn’t know anything about it.”
But Williams knew he wanted to write, and the program — taught by acclaimed playwright Lee Blessing — also incorporated screenwriting and television writing, so Williams wrote his first play and submitted it as part of his application.
“It was horrible,” he said. “And then, when I got up there, everything I was writing was really bad because I was trying to emulate what I thought theater should be.”
Now he does the opposite. Following Blessing’s advice, Williams started to write about Arkansas and honed a style he describes as “pitch-black comedy.”
“It’s not what most people think of when they think of theater,” said Zac Powers, executive director of Red Door Studios, which is producing the play. “It’s the kind of theater I’ve always loved, the kind that tears away the masks we put on and gets down to the nitty-gritty of what it is to be human.”
Williams has been living in and around New York City for the past 10 years, writing and directing plays and teaching writing courses at Rutgers. He has also worked on small-budget movie scripts and recently served as the story producer for the reality television series Amish Mafia.
He has had five full-length plays published and produced on multiple stages. Derby Day has been produced in New York City and Los Angeles. It will appear in New York City again in June and will be followed by a production in Edinburgh, Scotland, in July. The Hot Springs production is the play’s first Arkansas showing.
“I’m excited,” said Williams, who returned to Hot Springs last November. “I’ve actually got family that’s coming to see it for the first time.”
Upon his return, Williams met Bill Solleder, executive director of Low Key Arts, a nonprofit organization that produces and hosts a variety of community arts events. Solleder introduced Williams to the members of Red Door Studios with the idea that they might be able to collaborate.
“It’s amazing how the stars aligned to make this happen,” Powers said. “This is the first time any of his shows have been produced on Arkansas soil, so it’s definitely an honor for us.”
A nonprofit production company, Red Door Studios was created by Powers and fellow veterans of the local theater community Woodrow “Chip” Hightower, Joshua Williams and Cameron Jones. The company launched in October 2014 with Cabin Fevil, an original screenplay by Powers.
In addition to stage performances, the group will host a radio show when Low Key Arts launches its new low-power FM radio station this spring. The Red Door Radio Hour will include local performance-art news, interviews and an original radio serial, The Chronicles of Ice Falls.
Derby Day is the group’s second production and will feature all local talent — something that is important to their mission.
“They’ve blown me away, honestly, [with] their professionalism and their effort,” Williams said of the cast and crew. “They’re making it exciting to go each day.”
Advance tickets for the play are $10 and can be purchased online. Tickets are $15 at the door. For ordering information and more about Derby Day and other Red Door productions, visit www.reddoorhotsprings.com.