What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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AUGUST 11-17, 2019 WHAT'S UP! 3 In Love With Theater T2 celebrates new home with lavish production Courtesy Photo Robert Ford, one of the founders of TheatreSquared, can sum up the moment he saw T2's theater design come to life on the corner of West and Spring in a simple sentence. "It's like walking around inside your dream." "Shakespeare in Love" is the first show in T2's new home. COVER STORY See T2 Page 4 LARA JO HIGHTOWER NWA Democrat-Gazette I t is nearly two weeks before the very first show to be performed in TheatreSquared's gorgeous new space opens. At this moment in T2's 1,700-square- foot rehearsal hall, "Shakespeare in Love" actors Steven Marzolf, who plays Lord Wessex, and Matthew Goodrich, who plays Shakespeare, are rehearsing a show- stopping sword fight. Moving at half-speed, the actors are intent as their swords hiss through the air, landing hits with sharp clashes as fight and physical comedy choreographer DC Wright looks on. The choreography of the fight, like the show itself, is grand and spectacular: Stage manager Shannon Jones estimates that "fight call" — the period at the beginning of a rehearsal where all fights and comedic pratfalls are rehearsed — includes well over a dozen sequences. It's not the only thing super-sized about the show. Costume designer Ruby Kemph says "Shakespeare" has 50 individual looks, just edging out "Amadeus," the company's previous record holder for the most costume requirements. Kemph says she spent much of the summer making dozens of phone calls to theaters like the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival to find the lush, detailed costumes to supplement those that she made in-house. At 18 actors, the cast is the largest in T2's history, and the two- story set fills the company's brand Goodrich Bignault