Matt Chiorini, founding artistic director of Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre, will be the guest of honor at the UCA President’s Home at a cocktail reception June 10 at 5 p.m. to celebrate the start of AST’s 10th anniversary season.
The evening’s $100 ticket will allow entrance to opening night of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a delicious buffet of hearty appetizers, wine, beer, and an opportunity to hear from Chiorini about his experience starting and running AST. Stars of AST’s 2016 season will also be in attendance. Starting at 5 p.m., a shuttle will be available to transport guests to the Baum Gallery of Fine Art for a tour of Shakespeare’s First Folio, one of the rare copies of some of his collected plays.
Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre’s 10th anniversary season will open at 7:30 p.m. that evening with A Midsummer Night’s Dream outdoors on The Lawn of McAlister Hall on the campus of the University of Central Arkansas. Romeo and Juliet will open in Reynolds Performance Hall on June 17, and West Side Story will open on June 24. AST’s family-friendly adaptation of Twelfth Night will open June 30 in Reynolds and will also tour across the state in June and July, with performances at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Winthrop Rockefeller Institute on Petit Jean Mountain, Hot Springs Farmer’s Market, Argenta Community Theatre, The Joint in Argenta and to venues in El Dorado, Leslie, Helena and Pine Bluff.
For more information about the complete season, visit www.arkshakes.com. Tickets are now on sale; call 866-810-0012.
Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre is the state’s only professional Shakespeare company and is proud to make its home on the UCA campus. Each summer, AST offers full productions of a range of Shakespeare’s works, as well as other plays and musicals that help fulfill AST’s mission to entertain, engage, and enrich the community.
The UCA College of Fine Arts and Communication includes the Departments of Art, Communication, Mass Communication and Theatre, Music and Writing. The college’s primary mission is the preparation of the next generation of artists, educators and communicators. For more information about CFAC, visit www.uca.edu/cfac or call (501) 450-3293.
