Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab
In 2013, the Alliance Theatre launched the Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab to support and provide opportunities to artists of multiple theatre disciplines looking for a producing home for undeveloped work. Each year, the Alliance extends an open call for Atlanta artists to submit their projects for consideration. Three projects are chosen by a panel of judges representing local and national artists of varying disciplines. Each project receives $10,000 to use toward further exploration and development, as well as access to the Alliance’s artistic, educational and production staffs, and rehearsal spaces. In its inaugural year the Alliance received 68 applications, representing 204 individual artists.
It is the goal of the Reiser Lab to celebrate the breadth and vision of Atlanta-based artists, to encourage collaboration among Atlanta’s artistic community, and to seed projects that will be produced here in Atlanta. The outpouring of applications for inclusion in the inaugural year of the program shows the vibrancy of the artistic community living in Atlanta and the need for further support of local art.
“What the Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab does, and programs like it, is provide that critical seed money in helping [artists] invest in themselves and give that incubation time that gets a piece of art closer to the stage.”
– Tinashe Kajese-Bolden, Artistic Director
CURRENT COHORT: Round 11
in spite of years of silence
Artists: Ryan Jones, Kirsten King, Tadiwa Nashe
in spite of years of silence seeks to leave audiences with the message that the journeys to love, community, and healing in Black parent-child relationships are not exactly straightforward but are worthwhile undertakings…especially in a world that continues to devalue them.
Our Confederate Dead
Artists: Lee Osorio, Lilliangina Quiñones, Maria Sager
When the discovery of four bodies halts Duke University President Elena Ramos’s dream of building a Center for Latino Narratives, things look bad, but when it’s discovered that they are Confederate soldiers…and one is Latino- the question of what Latindad means in 2025 takes on a whole new dimension.
Threads/America’s Unraveling
Artists: Lauren Morris, Ian Sawan, and Alejandra Ruiz
When a visionary fashion founder is forced out of the company she built, she wages a final battle to control her legacy, unleashing a modern Medea story that exposes the human cost when industry, power, and art collide.
Round 12
A Night at the Sweet Gum Head
Artists: Connor Lyons, Alex Franco, and Martin Padgett
In the electric and intimate theatrical adaptation of “A Night at the Sweet Gum Head”, 1970s gay Atlanta comes to vibrant life through the stories of its bedazzling drag clubs and burgeoning rights activism—and the people that made it all happen. Sometimes, to find out who you really are, you need to become someone else.
Lost in Translation – Mom Must Die
Artists: Suehyla El-Attar Young, Reay Maxwell, Sarah Beth Hester
Telling the true story of a mother’s prolonged death in an Egyptian hospital, this live performance uses actors, puppetry, and sound design and examines the fight to honor a loved one’s end-of-life wishes in a foreign country’s ICU, all while navigating cultural, religious, and familial conflict; bringing forth the questions of love, duty, and the truth of letting go.
Monarchs
Artists: Kelundra Smith, Jade Lambert-Smith, and JL Reed
In 1935, during the Great Migration, John and Mae Monarch are leaving sharecropping in rural Mississippi for a new life in Chicago, only to discover that life in the North is not quite as they thought it would be. The couple and their growing family strive to hold steadfast to their dreams and each other as the harsh realities of a changing nation try to get the best of them.
Applications
Applications for Round 13 will open in the fall.
Masterclass Series
In 2022, The Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab launched the Masterclass Series. This is a collection of free workshops hand-crafted by local and national industry professionals for our Atlanta artist community.
Come Curious. Leave Changed.
Join us for transformative theater that speaks to the heart of Atlanta.