That partnership between UAMs and the University of Hawaii isn't the only partnership we want to talk about today. Two Fayetteville institutions are pairing up for an unusual association. Here's the executive director of one of the partners, Shannon Jones with TheatreSquared.
“We are in the new TheatreSquared storage warehouse located at Ozark Natural Foods.”
Thousands of items we've seen on stage for T2 productions are in the back of the Ozark Natural Foods store. There are chairs, vases, keyboards, pants, pots, wall hangings, almost anything you can imagine from almost any decade you can fathom here.
“Props. Props, furniture, linens. We've got some of our community experience storage here. We've got a 20-year history at TheatreSquared. We're celebrating our twentieth anniversary season this year, and we've accumulated a lot of stuff in the last 20 years. And we need a place to put it. And ONF was so generous and lovely in helping us out and being a partner. And so now we got this new space.”
So why is a professional theater company storing their inventory in the back of a cooperative grocery store?
This all began when T2's previous warehouse space, located across town near Fossil Cove Brewery, became unavailable. T2 needed space to house their collection of items, and it turns out Ozark Natural Foods at the same time was looking for a suitable partner to rent about 3,200 square feet of storage at the back of the store.
Sterling Hamilton with Cushman & Wakefield Sage Partners says it made sense to put the two organizations together for a multiyear lease.
“I think it's not just about the, oh, I see an opportunity, or two people who could get together. I think it's the relationships that have been built over time that connect us as a community. And I think that's the main takeaway from this—what a community-oriented partnership this is—because it incorporates almost every aspect of what Fayetteville really is and what it means.”
Hamilton says the ease with which the collaboration developed is owed in part to the familiarity the business, arts and food supply communities in the city have with each other.
Alicia Powell, director of operations at Ozark Natural Foods, says as far as the actual physical moving of all the T2 pieces into the warehouse went: Well, it all went well.
“I mean, honestly, this worked out a lot better than we could have hoped for. I think we had a little bit of, like, oh, they're going to need the whole day in the loading bay to unload stuff. And it all fell into place perfectly.
“Everything has been so easy since they moved in. We really haven't had anything come up where it's like, oh no, somebody needed to get in at a weird time or anything like that. It's just been a really wonderful partnership together.”
And remember, this isn't just storage. The T2 presence in the ONF warehouse is more like a library. Out-of-town scenic directors need access to the collection in advance of productions to flesh out a set, and a majority of this year's productions just happen to be period pieces.
Shannon Jones says they didn’t need just a repository. They required enough room to permit browsing. Finding the right detail for a set is somewhat like shopping.
“A little bit. It starts with the director's vision. They work with our scenic designer. The scenic designer and the props designer work very closely. ‘We need this thing. And this is period appropriate.’ Or ‘We have this thing and it needs to be modified slightly.’ But we have this amazing warehouse where we can come in and we're like, we have that, we have that. And we can come in, shop around, pull all the things that we need.
“The actors get to use it in rehearsal, and then we do whatever doctoring we need to do. And then a few weeks later it shows up on set for the entire community to experience.”
And Alicia Powell, director of operations at ONF says watching the partnership develop has made her realize that retail and theater do have some things in common.
“Well, I think honestly, their inventory might be a little more organized than the co-op. But other than that, it is similar. They come here when they need something. And a lot of our shoppers are—I mean, to be fair, we do have a lot of shoppers that just come in every single day and hang out in the taproom or on the patio.
“But the whole goal of ONF is to have the items people want. So going into the store, even though we don't carry things with artificial color, flavor, preservatives, anything like that, we want people to be able to come in and be like, oh, I really need baking soda. We have four different ways you can get baking soda in the store. So it's kind of similar in the way that if somebody calls me and they say, ‘I need this, this, this and this,’ I'll go out to the floor and I'll get it all ready for them.
“So it's a little bit similar. But like I said, I think they have a really good organizational thing going on here.”
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
