What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1469646
"And, we have a matching donor for the play festival," Vaughan adds. "We helped raise $10,000 for MSH at our 'Love Letters' benefit performance in April so we hoping folks will donate at this event, as well." "It's important to say that we don't want anyone to not attend because they think their donation may be too small," says Mark Beasley, one of the APW leaders. "Anything helps. One dollar helps. And if you can't afford one dollar, I would say this — please come anyway and support the playwright with your interest." The chance to see a play "on its feet," even as a staged reading, is invaluable to playwrights, he adds. "A playwright can be intimately familiar with the dialogue and characters of a script, but once it comes up off the page into three dimensions, spoken by real people, having voice, sound and action, it can change entirely," he explains. "It presents new opportunities and new challenges." "I hope the festival encourages writers of all levels to write, or those who might not consider themselves writers to write," says Mark Landon Smith, APW leader and successful playwright himself, with 18 scripts published including three foreign translations, a film adaptation an Off-Broadway production and an Distinguished Play nomination from the American Alliance for Theatre and Education. "We all have stories to tell, and APW provides resources to help writers tell their stories." "I think it is also important to say that the generosity of the actors, directors and musicians who are participating in the Northwest Arkansas Playwrights Festival has touched me deeply," concludes Vaughan. "All of them have donated their time and talent to celebrate these playwrights and raise money for MSH. How lucky can we get?" MEET THE PLAYWRIGHTS Dan Borengasser Springdale Plays: "The Eternal Triangle" and "The Sin Eater" "I started writing in the early '70s and tried everything from writing greeting cards and television commercials to humor articles and children's fiction, before settling on playwriting," says Borengasser, who spent many years with Ozark Film & Video Productions. "I'm not sure what initially inspired me. I think writing always seemed like this really engaging puzzle where you take a bunch of words and arrange them in a way that'll have the maximum impact." "The Eternal Triangle" is about a guy in his early 30s who is about to break up, rather spinelessly, with his girlfriend, but is interrupted by his guardian angel and his guardian devil. "The Sin Eater" is a magical realism piece centered around the long-ago practice of sin eating, which consisted of a person (the sin eater) consuming a ritual meal at the home of a recently deceased person, to absorb his or her sins, thereby absolving the soul and allowing the person to rest in peace. Showtimes: "The Eternal Triangle," 2 p.m. June 18; directed by Charles Riedmueller; pre-show music by John Joseph Ray, 1:15 p.m.-2 p.m. "The Sin Eater," 7:30 p.m. June 18; directed by Jonelle Grace Lipscomb; pre-show music by Rob Button, 6:45- 7:30 p.m. Brynda Pappas Fayetteville Play: "Little Rock 1957" Having grown up in North Little Rock, Pappas came to Fayetteville in 1969 as a freshman at the University of Arkansas, then returned in 2012, after working in Washington, D.C., and suburban Maryland. Now retired, her first job was alongside her husband, Doug Howard, in the '70s, when they published a weekly alternative newspaper in Fayetteville, the Grapevine. She was later press secretary for a U.S. congressman, spokesperson for the American Film Institute at the Kennedy Center, the Visiting Nurse Association, a DC hospital and lastly, the American Occupational Therapy Association. "As a history major, I was very interested in African-American history," she says. "When my advisor, Dr. Willard Gatewood, suggested I write my senior thesis on Daisy Bates, I found a subject that has fascinated me ever since. I reached out to her for a personal interview, and we became friends, until her death in 1999. I thought her life had the cinematic sweep of a movie, and got her permission to write a screenplay about her. "Sadly, my efforts to market it went nowhere. But in retirement, I kept plugging away at some way to tell her story, first trying to rework my screenplay into a stage play. Finally I hit on the idea of a play that would bring the two adversaries of the Little Rock Central crisis, Orval Faubus and Daisy Bates, face to face with each other during the events of that September." Showtime: "Little Rock 1957," 3 p.m. June 19; directed by Jules Taylor; pre-show music by The CD Players 2:15-3 p.m. 8 WHAT'S UP! JUNE 5-11, 2022 COVER STORY Pappas Borengasser Husband and wife Tim Gilster and Terry Vaughan founded the Smokehouse Players in 2017 with the mission of providing "free bare-bones theater to the Northwest Arkansas community while raising awareness and funds for Magdalene Serenity House." (Courtesy Photo) Playwrights Continued From Page 7 Mark Beasley (left) and Mark Landon Smith are the co-directors of the Arkansas Playwrights Workshop. (Courtesy Photo)