Screenwriters Collective
NWA Actors Lab
The NWA Actors Lab is a vibrant community of artists dedicated to promoting the personal and professional growth of local actors by providing space, time, and facilitators to aid in nourishing and honing the craft of acting.
Believing that artistic growth occurs naturally through structured practice in communities of mutual support and respect, the NWA Actors Lab is dedicated to providing the space, facilitators, and framework to assist local actors in honing, growing, and nourishing the craft of acting.
Through bi-monthly meetings, the Lab creates a local infrastructure for actors to work their craft receiving constructive feedback in work sessions from experienced professionals and peers, the support and encouragement to explore and grow their craft by taking artistic risks, the opportunity to learn through both successes and failures in a safe space, and regular exposure to working within different genres and styles (classical, realism, theatrical, cinematic) guided by experienced professionals in each style.
Additionally, the Lab actively partners with the NWA Screenwriters Collective to support the work of local screenwriters through cold and prepared readings of screenplays in development at every Lab session.
Meet the Founders
Richard Width
Richard Width (founding member, AEA, Dramatist’s Guild) performed or directed well over 100 Equity mainstage, young company, residency and professional staged reading productions with Orlando Shakespeare Theater (Orlando Shakes) during his tenure as their founding Education Director. While there he created all educational curriculum and adapted Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Forster’s Maurice, and Poe’s Pit and the Pendulum for the stage as a part of their new play development program. He directed, taught, and choreographed in the Central Florida area for 14 years with such institutions as Rollins College, Seminole State College, the University of Central Florida, and was a founding board member of The Garden Theatre. Following his tenure with Orlando Shakes, he was a full-time Fine Arts faculty member at Trinity Preparatory School teaching theater and speech. Nationally, he has taught with the Special Studies branch of the Chautauqua Institute, the Texas Shakespeare Festival, presented workshops for the NJ Juvenile Detention Association on the use of Shakespeare with incarcerated youth to address trauma, has been a part of the Human Library with Fayetteville Public Library, and was invited to speak on Medical Aid in Dying in Portland, Oregon, at the American Academy of Physicians annual conference. He co-founded the non-profit First Flight Theatre in NJ, adapting Bram Stoker’s Dracula into a one-woman show titled Mina and for three years directing their annual offering of A Christmas Carol. His film and television work includes roles in My Mother the Madam, Buyback, The Professional, The Roles We Play, Vin Diesel’s directorial debut Multi-facial, and multiple under-5s on All My
Children, One Life to Live, and The Guiding Light. Currently a resident of Northwest Arkansas (NWA), he has worked with Theater Squared, written the feature screenplay Walking You to Heaven and short The Weight of Motion, which recently won a development deal while working full-time as a Hospice RN and Psychiatric RN with at-risk adolescents. His first book, Walking You Home: Anecdotes and Observations of a Hospice Nurse, was released on Amazon in September of 2026. He holds a BFA in Theater, cum laude, from Boston University, having also trained with McCarter Theater, Ensemble Studio Theater, The Actor’s Studio, and Shakespeare and Company.
Mary Sue Price
Mary Sue is currently working on an opera libretto with Jonathan Stinson, Teaching Associate Professor and Director of Opera Theater at the University of Arkansas. Working with PALS, the performing arts group at Life Styles, an organization that supports adults with developmental disabilities.
In the past five years or so: Off-Off Broadway production of my play, Billy the Bomber, Artists 360 grant, Arkansas Arts Council practicing artist grant.
Commission from Tulsa Opera to write their Christmas show to celebrate Route 66.
Various workshops in NYC. Three residencies at the Inge Center in Independence, Kansas.
Other credentials:
Two Emmys, one WGA Award, and many nominations for my work on the scriptwriting teams of General Hospital, where I worked for over14 years. I also wrote for As the World Turns and Another World. I’m a Lifetime Member of the WGA.
I taught playwriting at a Lanford Wilson conference at the University of Missouri a few years ago. I also taught daytime writing seminars at Carnegie Mellon and the ABC Writers Development Lab.
Finalist and semi-finalist at the O’Neill Theater and Musical Theater Conferences for various projects.
Off-Broadway production and publication of my play, That Midnight Rodeo. It’s published in the Viking Take Ten anthology.
Readings, workshops, and non-Equity productions of my plays throughout the country.
MFA in Dramatic Writing, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.