The Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre, Arkansas’s only professional Shakespeare Festival, has announced its cast for the 2011 summer festival.
AST’s fifth season of professional theatre in repertory will run June 16-July 3 at multiple venues: Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall on the University of Central Arkansas campus and The Village at Hendrix Greenspace, both in Conway, as well as the newly-renovated Argenta Community Theatre on Main Street in North Little Rock. The season will include As You Like It, Othello, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and the children’s show, The Tortoise and the Hare.
“With the addition of the two new venues, I hope that theatre-goers in Arkansas and around the region will embrace AST as reflection of the cultural and artistic growth that is currently underway,” said Dr. Mary Ruth Marotte, AST’s executive director. “We are excited that we’ll be able to bring our professional theatre to a wider audience.”
The 35 actors hired for the productions make up the usual mix of local and out-of-state professionals working alongside college students. This year, actors have been hired from New York, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, North Carolina and elsewhere, working with Arkansas actors and student acting interns from UCA and Hendrix College.
“We are thrilled with the diversity of actors in this year’s season, and the competition this year for the roles was intense,” Marotte said. “We saw more than 1,000 actors from all over the country and had hundreds more sending us photos and videos for consideration.”
The title role of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat will be played by Tulsa-based actor Chris Crawford, who many will remember from his other AST roles as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet and as Leo Bloom in The Producers. Derrick Parker will travel from North Carolina to play the title role in Othello. This year’s local actors include AST veterans Paige Reynolds, Josh Rice and newcomers Heather Dupree, Jay Ruud, and Adam Frank.
Acting interns include Jackie Rivera and Rachael Small from UCA and Ben West and Jordan Breckenridge from Hendrix. Additionally, 20-25 central Arkansas children (ranging in age from 8-16) can audition May 14 in Bridges/Larson Theatre in Snow Fine Arts Center on the UCA campus for the children’s choir in Joseph. Further information on auditions can be found on the Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre website, www.arkshakes.com.
For more information, contact Marotte at (501) 428-4165 or mrmarotte@uca.edu.