The Department of Theatre in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences unleashes the ARKType New Play Festival, Feb. 27-March 15, 2026, a celebration of new work featuring thesis productions by M.F.A. Playwriting candidates Basil Parnell and Connor Johnson, alongside a devised ensemble piece created by the UARK graduate theatre cohort in collaboration with Tectonic Theater Project.
"All the plays in this year's festival grapple with wildness and what it means to be untamed, unbounded, and creatively alive," says John Walch, associate professor and head of the M.F.A. program in playwriting. "Each piece pushes past the expected into unmapped territory both imaginatively and theatrically."
The lineup brims with theatrical adventure including: Camp Wyldwood, Parnell's blood-soaked valentine to girls at summer camp; Wildflower Season, Johnson's expansive collision of fairy tale and contemporary tragedy; and Bookends, the cohort's ensemble-devised work inspired by visits to Dickson Street Books and charting the wilderness that opens up when you enter a used bookshop and disappear between the shelves.
"Wildness wasn't assigned as a theme," Walch says, "it surfaced organically from...
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