Honors Students’ Arkansas Story Vault Project Highlights TheatreSquared’s Community Outreach
The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences is pleased to announce the public release of its latest Arkansas Story Vault project featuring TheatreSquared, a professional theatre in downtown Fayetteville.
Working alongside students from the U of A’s Honors College, Alessandro Salemme, video producer at the Pryor Center, sought to showcase the history of TheatreSquared by exploring its foundation, community outreach and reputation as a pillar of the region’s performing arts.
The video interviews from this project are now available on the Arkansas Story Vault website.
“The Arkansas Story Vault is about providing these students the ownership of their oral history projects and research,” Salemme said. “TheatreSquared was the perfect catalyst for these students to explore and learn just how to do this, which was supported by the incredible staff at TheatreSquared.”
The students’ research also provides insight into why TheatreSquared continues to grow as a staple of diversity, opportunity and production in the regional and national theatre scene, according to Salemme.
The Honors College students who worked on the project during the 2022-23 school year included:
- Ethan Brown, a senior studying political science, anthropology and religious studies
- Miceala Morano, a freshman studying English and journalism
- Janna Morse, a freshman studying international and global studies with a concentration on peace, security and human rights
- Ella Scurlock, a sophomore studying history, anthropology and religious studies
- Sydnie Smith, a senior majoring in history and political science with a minor in legal studies
- Sarah Wilson, a senior studying industrial engineering
The Arkansas Story Vault produces oral history projects rooted in the stories told by the people of Arkansas. This project, founded by Pryor Center, supports the center’s mission to document the cultural heritage of Arkansas by providing students with hands-on experience in media production and community storytelling.
Arkansas Story Vault projects, which include vignettes on the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas, the Pho Minh Buddhist Temple, Opera in the Ozarks and more, were produced in cooperation with the School of Journalism and Strategic Media, the Honors College and others at the U of A and in the larger community.
Visit the Pryor Center’s Arkansas Story Vault website for more information about this student-centered program and to explore the content from previous projects.
About The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History: The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History is an oral history program with the mission to document the history of Arkansas through the collection of spoken memories and visual records, preserve the collection in perpetuity, and connect Arkansans and the world to the collection through the Internet, TV broadcasts, educational programs, and other means. The Pryor Center records audio and video interviews about Arkansas history and culture, collects other organizations’ recordings, organizes these recordings into an archive, and provides public access to the archive, primarily through the website at pryorcenter.uark.edu. The Pryor Center is the state’s only oral and visual history program with a statewide, seventy-five county mission to collect, preserve, and share audio and moving image recordings of Arkansas history.
About the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences: The Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences is the largest and most academically diverse unit on campus with three schools, 16 departments and 43 academic programs and research centers. The college provides the majority of the core curriculum for all University of Arkansas students.
About the University of Arkansas: As Arkansas’ flagship institution, the U of A provides an internationally competitive education in more than 200 academic programs. Founded in 1871, the U of A contributes more than $2.2 billion to Arkansas’ economy through the teaching of new knowledge and skills, entrepreneurship and job development, discovery through research and creative activity while also providing training for professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the U of A among the top 3% of U.S. colleges and universities with the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the U of A among the top public universities in the nation. See how the U of A works to build a better world at Arkansas Research News.
This story also appeared in the University of Arkansas News publication.