World premiere of “Fault” at Fayetteville’s T2

In the aftermath of a nuclear disaster in the Arkansas River Valley, Gabe—ex-Razorback, now star NFL quarterback—defies a government quarantine and returns to his family farm. There he encounters Molly, a complete stranger who has backpacked into the hot zone for her own troubling reasons.

An explosive psychological thriller, Fault is the newest work by T2 Artistic Director Robert Ford (Look Away, The Spiritualist, My Father’s War). The production by Fayetteville’s Theatre Squared is the play’s world premiere production.

Robert Ford is co-founder, and Artistic Director of T2, where he began as playwright-in-residence in 2005. Since taking over as artistic director in 2008, he has helped produce over 30 plays and musicals and facilitated 30 development projects through the Arkansas New Play Festival (ANPF).

Bob has written eight full-length plays, including his fi rst, Tierra del Fuego, which won the Stanley Drama Award, following development at the former Mount Sequoyah New Play Retreat in Fayetteville.

Productions in the 2014/15 season included The Spiritualist at Stages Rep in Houston, following its T2 premiere in 2013 and workshops at ANPF, the New Harmony Project (Indiana), and the Blank Theatre (Los Angeles). Houston Press called The Spiritualist “at once riotously funny, musically engaging, and sweetly complex.”

His play My Father’s War (T2, 2008) has appeared in the UK, Italy, and Germany. For T2, Bob directed Drawer Boy and his own adaptation of It’s a Wonderful Life. Bob’s critically acclaimed first novel, The Student Conductor, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick and a “Hidden Gem” on NPR’s Morning Edition.

A professional musician, Bob has been a flautist with both SONA and NASO in Northwest Arkansas. He holds a Master of Music degree from Yale and MFAs in acting from Rutgers and in playwriting and screenwriting from the Michener Center for Writers, University of Texas at Austin. He is former head of the MFA playwriting program at the University of Arkansas.

Performances of Fault are February 4-28 in the Studio Theatre at the Walton Arts Center’s Nadine Baum Studios. Tickets are $10-$27, and may be purchased online at www.WaltonArtsCenter.org, or by phone at (479) 443-5600.

TheatreSquared is Northwest Arkansas’s professional regional theatre, offering an intimate live theatre experience for 30,000 patrons each year. In 2011, TheatreSquared was recognized by the American Theatre Wing, founder of the Tony Awards, as one of the nation’s ten most promising emerging theatres.

The Gayly – February 3, 2016 @ 11:50 a.m.