Offscript - City limits
City Series comes back for seconds, not thirds
The Alliance Theatre’s freshly announced 2004-05 season contains plenty of neat-o news, like a staging of Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Topdog/Underdog, a theatrical version of Carson McCullers’ novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Spinning Into Butter playwright Rebecca Gilman, and Ron Anderson’s adaptation of The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer, a children’s book by former President Jimmy Carter.
But one of the most noteworthy items is the one that’s absent from the lineup. The City Series, the Hertz Stage’s showcase of remounted plays from other Atlanta theater companies, will not return for a third time in 2005.
Artistic director Susan V. Booth modeled the program after Chicago’s 10-week summer lineup of remounts, Theatre on the Lake.
The second City Series begins April 22 and features theaters that each cater to a specific demographic. Jewish Theatre of the South stages the feel-good drama Visiting Mr. Green April 22-May 2. Woman-oriented Synchronicity Performance Group presents the dark comedy about cheerleaders, Be Aggressive, May 6-16. Irish-accented Theatre Gael offers the scorching melodrama The Beauty Queen of Leenane May 20-30. And Ballethnic Dance Company steps in with two shows, Psychedelia and Shades of Ebony, June 3-13.
Guessing which theaters would make up a third City Series is a fun but futile exercise. Though she’s pleased by the excitement the series generated, Booth never intended it to be a permanent program for the Alliance. She had hoped to set a precedent for other companies and supporters to step in and absorb the costs.
The city of Chicago funded Theatre by the Lake, but Atlanta’s ever-tightening budget couldn’t come close to bankrolling an independent City Series. The private sector would have to help — and, in fact, this year’s series received welcome boosts from the Woodruff Arts Center and Bank of America, which should be encouraged to carry the concept further.
The question remains, what sort of plays should a City Series reward?
Since Atlanta’s civic identity prides business, innovation and youth, perhaps the motif closest to the city’s character would focus on new work — shows with world premieres within the year, particularly ones involving local writers. New plays always improve with subsequent productions. Aileen Loy’s Geek Love would blossom with a tighter script, while Lauren Gunderson’s Isaac Newton fantasy Leap would reveal greater depths with professional actors.
Such a series would literally invest in Atlanta theater, cultivate Atlanta’s theatrical style and elevate the city’s national reputation. So how about it? Which corporation wants to step up and put its name on a City Series? Anyone?
Anyone?
For starters
Alliance Theatre begins its next season Sept. 9 with a coup: a musical version of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple in its first production en route to a Broadway debut, a la the Alliance’s debut of Elton John’s Aida.
Theaters typically begin their seasons with their most lavish show, in part because the big noise helps draw attention — and sales, hopefully — for the rest of the year. Like a musical overture, the opener makes a statement of identity, revealing the kind of theater company it is, and what it aspires to be. The Color Purple promises to celebrate the Alliance’s artistic diversity and Southern roots.
You see comparable attitudes in the first shows announced by other theaters. In September, Dad’s Garage presents the campy, risque song-and-dance show Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical, based on the notorious skin flick of the same name. The Center for Puppetry Arts shows off the creativity of Jon Ludwig and Jason Hines with the lighthearted Avanti, da Vinci! Or the Secret Adventures of Leonardo da Vinci in August. 7 Stages affirms its international, avant-garde bent with Maria Kizito, a world premiere drama about the Rwandan massacre.
Theatrical Outfit will launch not just a new season, but an entire new playhouse: the 200-seat Balzer Theatre, formerly Herren’s restaurant. The Outfit will “break in” the Balzer with Tom Key’s one-man show of Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory and A Thanksgiving Visitor in December, then show off the space’s possibilities in January with the splashy musical revue Ain’t Misbehavin’ in January.
Local boy done good
When Evan Guilford-Blake’s friendship dramedy Journeys: A True and Comic Love Story opens at the Process Theatre April 30, it’ll put the cherry on top of a good month for the playwright. During April, the Atlanta writer saw his play American Blues win the Ronald Williams Playwriting Competition of Northeastern Illinois University. Family Portrait became a finalist in this July’s FutureFest of the Dayton Playhouse in Ohio, while his Poetry Plays (three one-acts about verse) has been nominated for the 2004 Samuel French Festival in New York City this June.
His success offers a reminder that some Atlanta writers see more of their work produced outside the city than in it.