By Kristen Coppola
Lemke Newsroom
The UA drama department formed a partnership with TheatreSquared, Fayetteville’s professional theater. The agreement made formal a longstanding relationship between the two institutions, officials said.
In six seasons, T2 had provided an outlet for UA drama students, faculty and alumni to gain professional experience. With the start of the fall 2012 semester and the seventh season of T2, the theater will now serve as a “learning laboratory and a professional training outlet” for the drama department, according to a UA announcement.
“It makes it policy to a certain extent, which means a lot,” said Martin Miller, managing director of T2. “It makes it something we have both openly said we are interested in preserving and growing.”
UA instructor Kristopher Stoker lectures to students in theater appreciation. One aspect of the partnership between the UofA and TheatreSquared was that all theater appreciation students would attend a T2 production. (Photo By Kristen Coppola, LEMKE NEWSROOM)
As a part of the partnership, theater appreciation students are required to go to a T2 play for class. Also, visiting assistant professor Bob Ford is receiving support from the UofA to invest time as the artistic director of T2.
“Certainly with the new stipulation that students who take theater appreciation need to come to a T2 production, that has automatically brought more students in,” Miller said. “What’s more valuable about it is for the students that are working on productions and the students that do come to the theater (Ford) is able to take more time connecting the experience for them.”
Another part of the agreement was advertising trade-out between the University Theatre and T2. When the University Theatre is running a production, T2 will display promotions at Nadine Baum Studios and vice versa, Ford said.
“They’re allies in that regard, too,” Ford said.
Other than bolstering the exposure of T2, the dual role of Ford helps to recruit interested students to become involved with the theater on stage or behind the scenes.
“The familiarity that we get from being on campus and being involved in their education process allows us to create those links in a way that we wouldn’t be able to do if were completely just relying on someone else to funnel those students to it,” said Morgan Hicks, director of education and program development at T2 and visiting instructor at UofA.
Promotions for both TheatreSquared and the University Theatre hang in Nadine Baum Studios where T2 productions are staged. (Photo By Kristen Coppola, LEMKE NEWSROOM)
The partnership began after Miller met with Robin Roberts, dean of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts & Sciences.
“I reached out to Dean Roberts in the Fulbright College to see if we could meet to chat, and we had lunch together,” Miller said. “In that way, I guess I made the overture.
“To be honest it seemed like she had either been waiting for me to call or about to call us because she had a whole list of ideas and was extremely enthusiastic about tightening our ties.”
Leaders at T2 are looking into the future of the partnership, which may grow in the future to allow students to get college credit for internships at T2 or to allow T2 to award candidacy points to students interested in joining a union.
“It gives them an advantage going into the professional career that they wouldn’t have otherwise,” Hicks said of awarding candidacy points to the unions. “The door is open to those conversations in a way that they weren’t really before because we hadn’t formally heard back from the university that they’re interested in pursuing those things.”
Miller also said that college credit could be an option for student internships.
“We’re very interested in that,” Miller said of providing credit for internships. “We’ve done it a couple of times on a project by project basis. I think that we’re all interested in being able to offer credit through crew positions at T2.
“It’s all a question to what extent student interest exceeds the four credit opportunities in the university theater department,” he said. “If it gets to the point that there students are interested in doing crew or working on a production or even working on sort of the producing aspect of making theater, then I think we’ll be able to offer more opportunities because they’ll be looking for venues for those students to work.”
The relationship is exemplified with the T2 production “Noises Off,” which runs through Sept. 23. Eight UA students and 11 alumni are on the cast and crew. Hicks directs the production and is an alumna as well as a visiting instructor.
