A celebration of new works for the american stage

may 2025

Join us this summer for a series of trailblazing new plays! In addition to attending the performances, you’re also invited to hear from the playwrights about their process and share your own thoughts with the creative team—and help shape new works from the ground up.

Performances will be held at TheatreSquared, at Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, and at the Medium in Springdale.

The 2025 Arkansas New Play Festival is presented in part with The American Theatre Wing.

ALL-ACCESS PASSES ON SALE NOW!
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New Play Passes grant entry to all events. Seating is very limited.

Festival Passes

2025 Lineup

play on jody
by candrice jones

Saturday, May 17 at 5pm (at The Medium)
Sunday, May 25 at 5pm (at TheatreSquared)

Jody is an old Bluesman with a black cough. Is it because of COPD? Is it because of a curse placed on his bloodline during the Civil War? Either way, his daughters, Jodayuh and Jody 5, will have to wrestle with the spiritual and financial complications of a family legacy etched in lust, music, and blood.

cowboys and east indians
by nina mcconigley and matthew spangler

Sunday, May 18 at 2pm (at Crystal Bridges)
Saturday, May 24 at 5pm (at TheatreSquared)

Based on McConigley’s short story collection of the same name and adapted in collaboration with Spangler, Cowboys and East Indians weaves together threads of culture clash, grief, and intergenerational assimilation to tell the story of the Sen family, immigrants who settle in mostly-white Casper, Wyoming and learn what it means to be “the wrong kind of Indian” in the American West.

tectonic play project

Friday, May 16 at 7pm (at The Medium)
Thursday, May 22 at 7pm (at TheatreSquared)

Discover what happens when the next generation of theatre makers team up with one of the country’s most celebrated creators of original performance. In this unique collaboration, the University of Arkansas graduate theatre cohort joins T2 and the New York-based Tectonic Theatre Project (The Laramie Project, Here There Are Blueberries) to create a documentary theatre experience that confronts the shadowy lines between truth and fiction.

Sherlock Holmes: The Timber Family File
by THE LATINX THEATRE PROJECT

Friday, May 23 at 7pm (at TheatreSquared)

Sherlock Holmes: The Timber Family File is the latest production from the LatinX Theatre Project (LXTP). The first half of this full-length play premiered at the 2024 Arkansas New Play Festival. Over the past year, Sherlock Holmes: The Timber Family File has continued to evolve and had a limited run in April at The Medium in Springdale. This play started as an exploration of the relationship between our community and the larger institutions that overlook us in our quest for justice. We discovered that in times of need, when everything else seems to falter, we tap into our inner Sherlock to uncover the truth. Tell the neighbors, tell the homies, tell the ops, we got a new detective on the block. No bad guys too big, and no case is too small for the homie.

2025 Schedule

Friday, may 16th (at The Medium)

7pm. Tectonic Play Project

Saturday, may 17th (at the medium)

5pm. Play on Jody by Candrice Jones

Sunday, may 18th (at crystal bridges)

2pm. Cowboys and East Indians by Nina McConigley and Matthew Spangler

Thursday, may 22nd (at Theatresquared)

7pm. Tectonic Play Project

Friday, MAY 23rd (at Theatresquared)

7pm. Sherlock Holmes: The Timber Family File by LatinX Theatre Project

Saturday, may 24th (at Theatresquared)

11:00am. Playwrights Panel

12:30pm. Young Playwrights Showcase

2:00pm. Side by Side by Basil Parnell (APPRENTICE SHOWCASE)

5:00pm. Cowboys and East Indians by Nina McConigley and Matthew Spangler

Sunday, may 25th (at Theatresquared)

2pm. The Winking Place by Connor Johnson (APPRENTICE SHOWCASE)