The Arkansas Repertory Theatre, which announced in April that it was converting its production schedule to summer-only, will stage five shows from June-September 2024, including two musicals -- one fully staged, the other a concert version in collaboration with the Arkansas Symphony -- and two world-premiere productions.
The Rep's "SummerStage" season opens June 18-30 with "Pride and Prejudice," Kate Hamill's "fresh, fast-paced comedic adaptation" of Jane Austen's classic about a young woman of modest means and social station who attracts the attention -- and more -- of a proud, stiff-necked aristocrat.
The rest of the lineup:
July 9-28: "Footloose" (music by Tom Snow, lyrics by Dean Pitchford, book by Pitchford and Walter Bobbie, based on Pitchford's screenplay for the 1984 film, with additional music by Eric Carmen, Sammy Hagar, Kenny Loggins and Jim Steinman). A Chicago teen is transplanted to a small town where a preacher has convinced the citizens to outlaw dancing. With the help of the clergyman's daughter, he sets about to find a way to lift the ban and in the process helps the town to heal from a tragedy.
Aug. 6-18: "Into the Side of a Hill" by James Anthony Tyler. It's a co-production with Flint (Mich.) Repertory Theatre, which will give the play its world premiere Feb. 2-18. A homecoming step show at a historically black university tests and strengthens the bonds of six fraternity brothers in the context of toxic relationships, mental health and war.
Aug. 22-24: "Hello, Dolly!" (concert version of the 1964 musical in partnership with the Arkansas Symphony; music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, book by Michael Stewart, based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce "The Merchant of Yonkers," which Wilder revised and retitled "The Matchmaker" in 1955). A meddlesome matchmaker brings together the young clerk of a wealthy Yonkers merchant and his assistant with a widowed milliner and her assistant, while making sure she herself gets to marry the merchant.
Sept. 3-15: "Responders," a dark comedy from Arkansas native Joseph Scott Ford about who shows up, and when, at the scene of a deadly accident. It's the season's other world-premiere production, in conjunction with TheatreSquared in Fayetteville, which stages it June 5-30 as part of the 2024 Arkansas New Play Festival.
Ken-Matt Martin, the Rep's interim artistic director, will direct "Pride and Prejudice," "Into the Side of a Hill" and "Hello, Dolly!" Directors for the other two shows are to be announced.
Martin describes the new seasonal model as "common among many theaters our size," allowing a consolidation of production issues -- and costs.
"We need just as many people" as it would take to put on five shows across a full fall-summer season, explains Rep Executive Director Will Trice, "but we can hire them for seasonal positions rather than year-round."
And while that will likely mean paying them a little better, employing them for "a number of consecutive weeks" will cut down on the theater's overhead, "something that, of course, we need to mind," he adds.
"We're hoping to find folks who will be excited at the prospect of spending the whole summer with us," says Martin.
Martin, a Little Rock native who began his theater experience as an intern with the Rep while he was a student at Parkview High School and who has gone on to direct and produce at theaters across the country, says it's his personal goal to provide "space and opportunity" to, while not naming names, bring home former Arkansans who are making their careers elsewhere "to spend the summer with us" -- in a similar way to that in which the Rep's current top management folks are "returning home." Trice, also a Little Rock native, is a former Tony-winning Broadway producer whom the theater hired to head its operations in 2019.
The theater's April announcement on the season change also included news that Trice, whose title had been executive artistic director, would be handing over artistic duties to Martin and concentrate on administration, finance and marketing. The theater is still in the process of searching out a permanent artistic director.
Martin and Trice add that concentrating on actor homecomings also leaves open the door to casting actors who are "already home."
"It's not mutually exclusive," Martin adds.
Martin in particular noted the blossoming of the number of local theaters and the diversity of the "vibrant" theater community that is providing outlets, professional and amateur, for local performers who might at some point be able to "also join us onstage at the Rep." That wasn't the case when he was in school here, he says.
Martin and Trice expect that the cast of "Footloose," in particular, will include youngsters in the Pre-Professional Company, a collaboration between the Rep and Argenta Community Theater involving students in grades 8-12.
Trice says the Rep will continue under its current status with theatrical union Actors Equity -- SPT (Small Professional Theater), Tier 8 -- which requires that the Rep have a certain number of union contracts each season.
Other collaborative possibilities include the prospect of hiring technical and production staffers -- for example, carpenters and electricians -- who will have been working on June 2024 productions for the Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre in Conway, who might "come straight to us" once work on those shows concludes, Martin suggests.
Martin and Trice are in the midst of discussions with the folks at the Arkansas Symphony about the concert version of "Hello, Dolly!," including how many musicians might be onstage. "We're using the full orchestral score," Trice says. "We want that big sound for that great score."
Martin notes that while the Rep is concentrating its "SummerStage" season, other projects are taking the Rep stage, including next month's "A Very Merry Motown Christmas," on which Martin is working with Chicago-based composer, arranger and musical director Nygel Robinson on a collection of favorite seasonal songs in what a news release describes as "fresh new arrangements inspired by your favorite Motown artists," including The Temptations, Stevie Wonder and The Supremes. Performers will include Little Rock singer/songwriter Bijoux and Jerron Liddell, director of choral activities at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
Performances will be at 7 p.m. Dec. 20-22 and 3 and 7 p.m. Dec. 23 at the Rep, 601 Main St., Little Rock. Tickets are $40, $20 for those under 18. Call (501) 378-0405 or visit TheRep.org.
The Arkansas Repertory Theatre at Sixth and Main streets in Little Rock is shifting its production schedule to summer-only starting in 2024. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staton Briedenthal)
Ken-Matt Martin is the interim artistic director. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette)
Will Trice is the executive artistic director of the Arkansas Repertory Theatre. Ken-Matt Martin is the interim artistic director. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette)CORRECTION: The Rep's "SummerStage" season opens June 18-30 with "Pride and Prejudice," Kate Hamill's "fresh, fast-paced comedic adaptation" of Jane Austen's classic. The author of the play was incorrect in an earlier vesion of this article.