TheatreSquared Artistic Director Robert Ford and Executive Director Martin Miller announced Monday the design team that will design the theater’s future home.
Theater planners Charcoalblue of London — who served as theater planners for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s new Courtyard Theatre — will lead the design team. Jonathan Marvel of Marvel Architects of New York will design the 51,000-SF theater building.
The firm was shortlisted from more than 70 architects who submitted to the Walton Family Foundation’s Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program, and then selected by TheatreSquared through an RFP and interview process.
“When we first visited TheatreSquared and watched Bob Ford’s Look Away, we were amazed to find, here in Northwest Arkansas, one of the best performances we’d seen all year,” John Owens, head of the U.S. office for Charcoalblue, said in a news release. “That work deserves — and, after touring Crystal Bridges, I can tell you this region is ready for — a world-class theatre building.”
The Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program provides financial support to develop space for public purposes, with funds earmarked for all phases of design work.
In August, TheatreSquared and the City of Fayetteville were awarded a competitive Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to explore potential sites and begin dialogue about creative placemaking.
In early October, the Fayetteville City Council voted unanimously to support TheatreSquared’s top site candidate, the 0.8 acre city parking lot located at the corner of West Ave. and Spring St. in downtown Fayetteville.
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