Rock Candy

• The Arkansas New Play Fest is May 17-18 at the Oxford American and May 18-20 at Nadine Baum Studios.

ARKANSAS NEW PLAY FEST 2012
7 p.m. Oxford American. $7 per reading, $20 full pass.

This marks the second year that The Arkansas Repertory Theatre has teamed up with TheatreSquared of Fayetteville to host a Central Arkansas production of The Arkansas New Play Fest (the Northwest Arkansas dates for the festival are May 18-20 at Nadine Baum Studios).

"The collaboration is designed to introduce promising new works for the stage to audiences in Northwest and Central Arkansas and to encourage conversation about the themes of these new plays," according to TheatreSquared.

This year's lineup includes readings of "Uprooted," a family drama by Clinnesha Dillon Sibley about a successful actress returning to her small hometown for her mother's funeral; "The Football Project," the story of a high school football team that becomes enmeshed in controversy and the reaction of the team's hometown, by Samuel Brett Williams; Robert Ford's "The Spiritualist," about a school cafeteria cook and self-proclaimed psychic who communes with dead composers; and "The Ballad of Rusty and Roy," the tale of two brothers — both musicians — whose careers follow different paths after they move to New York City, by Troy and Jonny Schremmer.