New Episode of The Artists Approach
An Online Q&A Series with leading theater professionals.
Hear from award-winning theater artists including Tom Kitt, Sierra Boggess, Tony Shalhoub, and many more in Alliance Theatre’s new video series, “The Artist’s Approach.” Weekly episodes will feature pre-recorded conversations with some of today’s most exciting actors, directors, and writers for stage and screen on their approach to their craft and tips of the trade.
Associate Producer Amanda Watkins chats with Pulitzer Prize Winning Composer Tom Kitt.
Other future episodes will feature guests including Josh Radnor, Itamar Moses, Casey Nicholaw, Lex Liang, and Michael Arden.
To view full episodes visit The Artist’s Approach.
New Episode of The Artists Approach
An Online Q&A Series with leading theater professionals.
Hear from award-winning theater artists including Tom Kitt, Sierra Boggess, Tony Shalhoub, and many more in Alliance Theatre’s new video series, “The Artist’s Approach.” Weekly episodes will feature pre-recorded conversations with some of today’s most exciting actors, directors, and writers for stage and screen on their approach to their craft and tips of the trade.
Associate Producer Amanda Watkins chats with Theater, Film and TV Actor Bethany Anne Lind.
STAY TUNED FOR UPCOMING EPISODES:
- Tom Kitt (July 21)
Other future episodes will feature guests including Josh Radnor, Itamar Moses, Casey Nicholaw, Lex Liang, and Michael Arden.
To view full episodes visit The Artist’s Approach.
This season, the Alliance is reimagining how to gather, where to take the stage, and how a story comes to life. From drive-in movie style productions to socially-distanced shows on the Coca-Cola Stage and even a brand-new streaming platform, we are making meaningful, fun, and creative changes to serve our audiences. Learn more about our reopening plans.
The new season reflects the Alliance’s continuing commitment to dynamic storytelling by and for a diverse group of people. The 52nd season includes six productions for adults, two for youth and families, and three productions for the Kathy & Ken Bernhardt Theatre for the Very Young. The productions represent three important and timely themes: the need for joy, the need for dialogue, and the celebration of our heroes.
“Theatre continues to be a necessary town square for essential conversations and a balm for our souls” said Susan V. Booth, Jennings Hertz Artistic Director. “Even in a pandemic and in deep and necessary civic unrest, still we are human. Still we love, we grieve, we rage, and we commune with friends and family – okay, maybe via Zoom, but still. We navigate forward, equally informed by truth and hope, and always in need of joy, dialogue, and heroes.”
A SEASON IN THREE ACTS
ACT ONE: JOY
A VERY TERRY CHRISTMAS
By Terry Burrell
From author and Broadway icon Terry Burrell (Ethel; Ever After; Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous) comes a holiday celebration of all the things that give us joy – even in the most chaotic of times. Give yourself the gift of laughter, light, and love by spending a very Terry evening with the Alliance.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL: THE LIVE RADIO PLAY
By Charles Dickens
Directed by Leora Morris
JINGLE! JANGLE! DASH! The sounds of the season come to life in the Alliance Theatre’s brand new, interactive audio experience A Christmas Carol: The Live Radio Play.
ACT TWO: DIALOGUE
THE NEW BLACK FEST’S HANDS UP: 7 PLAYWRIGHTS, 7 TESTAMENTS
By Nathan James, Nathan Yungerberg, Idris Goodwin, Nambi E. Kelley, Nsangou Njikam, Eric Micha Holmes, Dennis A. Allen II
Co-Directed by Keith Arthur Bolden and Alexis Woodard
Originally commissioned by the New Black Fest in response to the 2015 events in Ferguson, MO, where a police officer fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, Hands Up depicts the realities of Black America from the perspective of varying genders, sexual orientations, skin tones, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Hands Up is produced in association with Spelman College.
DATA (world premiere; winner of the 2021 Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition)
By Matthew Libby
Directed by Susan V. Booth
Winner of the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition, Data is a fast-paced drama for our technology-driven era that looks behind the closed doors of Silicon Valley.
ACT THREE: HEROES
ACCIDENTAL HEROES – THE REAL LIFE ADVENTURES OF ROY ROGERS AND DALE EVANS (world premiere; musical)
Book by Marshall Brickman (Jersey Boys, Annie Hall)
Music and Lyrics by T Bone Burnett (Crazy Heart, Walk The Line)
Directed by Des McAnuff (Ain’t Too Proud, Jersey Boys, The Who’s Tommy)
Heroes aren’t born; they’re made – with a little bit of luck. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans are remembered as authentic American heroes, yet their paths to stardom were anything but straightforward.
TONI STONE
By Lydia R. Diamond
Directed by Tinashe Kajese-Bolden
Considered a pioneer, Toni Stone is the first woman to play baseball in the Negro Leagues, also making her the first woman to play professionally in a mens’ league. Declared the Best New Play of 2019 by The Wall Street Journal, Toni Stone is a funny and fascinating story of race, gender, and raw ambition… and an unheralded superstar you’ll never forget.
THEATRE FOR FAMILIES
SIT-IN (world premiere)
By Pearl Cleage
Inspired by the book Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney; Illustrated by Brian Pinkney
A Palette Group Production
Original Compositions by Eugene H. Russell IV
Directed by Mark Valdez
In Sit-In, we meet three friends as they learn about the sit-ins of the Civil Rights era, and powerfully apply those lessons to issues they – and we all – face today. Featuring a mixture of Civil Rights anthems and new freedom songs composed specifically for the original animated short, Sit-In will move audiences, encourage inter-generational conversations, and inspire the next generation of conscientious social activists.
NAKED MOLE RAT GETS DRESSED: THE ROCK EXPERIENCE (musical)
Book and Lyrics by Mo Willems
Music by Deborah Wicks La Puma
Based on the book Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed by Mo Willems
Directed by Leora Morris
Children’s book author and artist Mo Willems (Knuffle Bunny, Elephant and Piggie’s We Are In a Play) brings another lovable character to life in this exciting family musical. With tail-shaking tunes, empowering messages of individuality, and classic Mo Willems humor, this musical is sure to rock audiences of all ages.
The productions for the Kathy & Ken Bernhardt Theatre for the Very Young include streaming versions of In My Granny’s Garden, (Knock, Knock) the Sounds of Winter, and The Sounds of the West End.
ALLIANCE THEATRE ANYWHERE
In addition to the live productions of the 2020/21 season, the Alliance will launch a new streaming platform – Alliance Theatre Anywhere – to bring the best of the Alliance’s stages to the digital world. Streaming shows and exclusive content will be available on demand. Annual members will receive complementary access to the platform as part of their membership benefits. Non-members can enjoy access to select free and paid content.
See Everything!
Annual Memberships for the Alliance Theatre are on sale now
Members enjoy 12 months of world-class theatre, as well as a variety of benefits including members-only events, a welcome gift, discounts, flexibility, and access to all streaming content.
Special show packages, including a 3-play package, a 6-play package, and packages for families, are also available by visiting www.alliancetheatre.org/membership. Show packages start at $50.
Single tickets for the season will go on sale in Fall 2020.
Learn more about our Reopening Plan.
Here’s what you need to know:
Last week Courtenay Collins kicked off WE’RE STILL HERE: A VIRTUAL CABARET and it was top-five coziest moments of this weird social distancing time. If you missed it, don’t fret. Terry Burrell and Courtenay switch off every other week, which means Terry hosts this week’s cabaret live from her living room. (RSVP here.) They sing songs, tell stories, and drink cocktails. You just can’t beat that.
And lucky for you, they’ve each shared their cocktail recipe of choice and we’re going to share them with you here. Bottoms up!
Courtenay Collins’s QUARANTORANGEY
7 oz. orange-flavored vodka
7 oz. cranberry juice cocktail
(note: Courtenay uses Diet Cranberry to pretend she’s on a diet)
4 oz. fresh lime juice
egg white
Mix all ingredients in a chilled martini shaker
Add ice and shake for at least 30 seconds
(or until you feel you have gotten a really good upper arm workout)
Strain into festive martini glass
Share or drink it all by yourself!
A Terry Burrell Original UNCLE CECIL’S RUM PUNCH
2 bottles of rum
(way too much)
1 bottle of rum
(kidneys hurt already)
4 oz. dark or spiced rum
(maybe 2 oz. more)
8 oz. greep-grapefru-grapefruiti juice
1 or 2 – angustura-anghostura-angostura – Angostura bitters
Purr over ishe an drank den drank sum mo’ (hic)
Courtenay Collins’s SWEET GINTEANIE
1 quart sweet tea
1 whole fresh lemon – squeezed
8 oz. gin
6-8 mint leaves
lemon slices for garnish
Put ice and 1 mint leaf in a glass – muddle together
Mix tea, lemon juice, & gin together in a pitcher
Pour over muddled mint ice
Garnish with lemon slice
Serve in highball glass (serves 6)
Terry Burrell’s DARK AND STORMY
2 oz. Goslings or Myers dark rum – or whatevah you think they don’t know is hiding in yo’ cabinet. Ya lush….
5 oz. GINGER BEER – put a piece o ginger in da Heineken if you ain’t gots no Ginger Beer
LIME WEDGE – or use lime hair dye if Publix ain’t got none cuz’ you craze
Drank tree glissses..and save one fer meeee (hic)
Courtenay Collins’s SUMMER LEMON
6 oz. Lemonade (I use Crystal Light because it’s sugar free)
3 oz. vodka
Splash of Fresca or Lime Perrier
Lemons for garnish
Pour over ice and drink while fanning yourself with a real fan and channelling your best Blanche Dubois because you’ve “always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
Terry Burrell’s DA BRUTHA-MAN
(originally made for Terry by her better half Stephen…after two or three….drinks!)
1 or 1 /2 jiggers of Bacardi Limon…aww make it 2
Dash or 2 of Chambourd
Squeeze of Lime
Place it all in a martini shaker full of ice
Shake then pour in a frosted martini glass… caution… don’t drink more than two but if ya really don’t want to be where you’re at… then drink six !!!!
See you Thursday!
The truth matters. Seems simple enough.
But when one is lucky enough to work with a world-class artist like Pearl Cleage, one begins to really appreciate the truth in a whole new way.
I’m lucky. I’m the director of the annual Palefsky Collision Project for teens at the Alliance Theatre, and for ten years now I’ve been working with renowned playwright, New York Times best selling novelist, poet, and Distinguished Artist in Residence, Pearl Cleage.
The Palefsky Collision Project is a play creation process. It’s a writing immersion experience. It’s an art boot camp.
Each summer, for three weeks in July, we meet with twenty of Atlanta’s emerging teen artists from all over the metro area. We go out of our way to pull together the most diverse group that we can.
We always start the process by colliding with a classic text. On the first day we collectively experience that text in some way. We’ve encountered many different kinds of texts along our way: plays, novels, poetry, film scripts, historical documents, graphic novels.
[One of my favorites was how we encountered Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass on our first day in 2016. We identified the green spaces on the Woodruff Arts Center campus, then moved from place to place hearing Whitman from the likes of Tinashe Kajese, Zaron Burnett, Jr., Jon Ludwig (with puppets!) Susan V. Booth, and others. That was a glorious July morning I’ll never forget.]
Then, through a series of coalition building and devising exercises, workshops with artists of various disciplines, guest speakers, site visits, and lots of conversation, the young artists unpack the text for us, and we begin to build a common physical vocabulary together. What are the main ideas and themes? How does the text resonate with a seventeen year old in the here and now? How does it reveal the truth?
During the first two weeks of the process Pearl and I, along with our fellow artists Rodney Williams and David Koté, ask a lot of questions and do a lot of listening. At the end of each day Pearl gives them a writing prompt based on the day’s experiences. In response, the young artists free-write for 20 minutes, and then Pearl collects the writing. There’s no taking it home to obsess about perfection. They write, turn it in, and then, after a night of much needed rest, begin a new day of workshops, site visits, conversation and more writing.
At the end of those two weeks, Pearl takes all of their written material home. Then, because she is our Jedi master, she is able to weave all of their writing together into a cohesive script, completely written by the participants, but shaped together by Pearl. After three short days she returns to the ensemble with a whole truth, built from many. (There’s a mysterious alchemy in her ability to do this. I’ll never understand it, and always marvel at it.)
The Collisioners are astounded by what they’ve written. They haven’t seen their own writing since turning it in each day, and they’ve never seen their peers’ writing. So, after our first read-through, they always say: I wrote that? We wrote that? There’s so much truth in it!
We then draw on our devised physical vocabulary to stage and tech the piece in five days. We work collaboratively. What was that move we got from Mama Yeye, or Lauri Stallings? How can we incorporate Rosemary Newcott’s contact improv? How do we use Bryan Mercer’s workshop on the levels of consciousness to guide us through our story telling? Is there a way we can include a physical representation of inspiration from our visit to the High Museum of Art, or the National Center for Civil and Human Rights? And, most importantly, how do we stage our piece to get at, and reveal, the truth?
Somehow, some way, at the end of that last very intense week, we have a show, conceived, written, and produced in three weeks. Wholly original, but inspired by a classic text. What began as a group of strangers, is now a tribe, unbelievably close, and forever changed by the experience of sharing with family and friends what they’ve been immersed in for three weeks, through words, song, and movement.
The audiences are changed, too. Wow, they say, I didn’t know they were thinking that! There’s so much truth in it!
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It matters.
Visit here for more on the Palefsky Collision Project, and links to past performances.
Pearl Makes A List: July 6, 2020
This week isn’t really a list as much as an announcement and an invitation. The announcement is that I’m going to suspend my lists for the next three weeks so I can concentrate on The Palefsky Collision Project. This wonderful program, generously endowed by Vicki and Howard Palefsky, brings together 20 talented Atlanta area high school students for a three week arts intensive at the end of which we present a wholly original performance written by the participants and shaped by me and Patrick McColery, our Collision director, and the entire team of artists, activists and teachers who bring the program to life every summer. This is my tenth year with the project and it is always equal parts exciting and exhausting. This year we’ll be doing it virtually for the first time and we are all eagerly anticipating this shared adventure. But one thing I’ve learned is that during the three weeks of the project, my brain cannot absorb another thing. Just keeping up with our 20 young participants takes up all the headspace I can muster. So, I will resume my lists on July 27. That’s the announcement. The invitation is to please share our virtual performances on July 24 and 25. Watch this space for details! We’d love to have you share this moment with us and I guarantee these young people will give you something to think about! They always banish all traces of cynicism from my heart and replace it with pure joy. Nice work if you can get it! Stay safe!
In the meantime, catch up on all of Pearl’s lists here.
And check out the Palefsky Collision Project on July 25 at 2:30pm.
We are coming up on the 4th of July weekend and I have already set my alarm for 3 a.m. on Friday to indulge my “Hamilton” obsession by watching the first showing of the filmed performance of the groundbreaking musical. “Hamilton” deepens our love of country through the simple genius of casting people of color as the founders, and in so doing, expanding the narrative to be explosively inclusive. I think this viewing is a legitimate way to head into the most patriotic weekend our country has to offer. Especially since in the midst of the pandemic that is still raging, home is still the safest place to be.
That said, I have no doubt that many Americans will head out to public spaces to celebrate by exercising what some angry people have called their constitutional right not to practice the most basic public health precautions, including wearing masks and social distancing. There are also millions of people who aren’t particularly angry, but just don’t take any precautions for a variety of reasons that are all beside the point. The Vice President even suggested that refusing to social distance is a free speech issue. It’s not. For your sake, and mine, wear a mask! Wash your hands! Keep a social distance! Our country is at a really incredible period of transition. We should all try to stay healthy so we can be part of it.
One of the things that is happening during this transition is that we are learning to think about what it means to be an American a little more deeply. To look at our neighbors with a little more understanding and compassion. Maybe most important, we’re figuring out how to hear some other American voices that don’t always think what we think, or feel what we feel, but can help us understand a different point of view if we listen a little harder. If they can sing, it makes it that much easier. Which brings us to this week’s list:
5 American Voices Talking About Their Country (and 4 of Them Can Sing).
These five voices are all very different, but each one is passionate about sharing the truth about this ongoing American experiment as we celebrate our country’s birthday one more time.
1. When the NBA invited Marvin Gaye to perform The Star-Spangled Banner at their All-Star game in 1983, they could not have known what was in store for the capacity crowd. We already knew some of the things that had been on his mind and in his heart because we had listened to his masterpiece, “What’s Going On?” way back in 1971, but nothing could have prepared us for this. Marvin took all of the contradictory feelings that are created when you love your country and it doesn’t love you back and channeled them into what may be the most soulful version of the National Anthem ever. I mean no disrespect to Jimi Hendrix and Jose Feliciano, also worthy contenders for their creative reinterpretations of this song, but Marvin just does it better. By the time he finished, the game was almost an afterthought.
2. “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist, gave this speech at the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society on July 5, 1852. Born into slavery in Maryland, Douglass escaped to freedom as a young man with the help of Anna Murray, a free black woman, who became his wife. In his autobiography, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,” he describes his feelings upon reaching New York as similar to “escaping from a den of hungry lions.” Settling in Massachusetts, he worked tirelessly to bring about an end to slavery, including giving hundreds of speeches like this one. His remarks inform discussions today about the role of sympathetic allies who want to assist oppressed people in their struggles to be free. James Earl Jones perfectly channels Douglass’ righteous rage.
3. “America,” by Waylon Jennings. It may seem odd to move from Frederick Douglass to Waylon Jennings, but not when you listen to this beautiful song. Waylon makes it clear that his politics are grounded in love of country and an understanding that inclusivity is a beautiful part of the song we sing together. For anyone who doubts that country music has always included African Americans and Mexican Americans, I urge you to watch Ken Burns PBS Series on Country Music. You will, like I did, not only come away with a better understanding of a deeply American art form, but loving a whole lot of music I’d never heard before. I already knew this one, though. Zeke introduced me to Waylon Jennings a long time ago, and I never looked back.
4. “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” by James Weldon Johnson and his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson. Often called “The Negro National Anthem,” the song was written in 1900 to commemorate the birthday of Abraham Lincoln and performed at the celebration that year by 500 African American school children. We sang it at church every Sunday, so I grew up knowing the words to two national anthems. Protesting one thing or another I often refused to stand and sing the American anthem until 2016. With President Obama in the White House, I claimed my country for the very first time and it felt great. Marvin Gaye got to sing one of my anthems. Here’s Ray Charles to sing the other one.
5. “American Tune,” by Paul Simon. This wistful ballad perfectly captures the confusion and exhaustion that sometimes overtakes us these days as we try so hard to do the right thing, stay safe, stay informed, stay positive. When he says, “I don’t know a soul that’s not been battered/I don’t have a friend who feels at ease/I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered/or driven to its knees,” he could be quoting my journals. But he also knows there are new dreams for us to dream together that make us feel like we’re flying. That’s why we have to take care of ourselves and each other. Because if you’re not there to add your dream to the mix, who will?
Check out all of Pearl’s lists here.
How do we approach the journey, when we don’t have a map?
So much of the last five months have felt like a visit to terra incognita – an unknown land that our emotional GPS doesn’t seem to recognize. While there are familiar landmarks, there are strange new realities that live alongside them, sometimes rendering indecipherable that which we thought we knew.
Trying to build a season of work for this constantly shifting time of pandemic, deep and wrenching civic unrest, and an America polarized on so many levels has been a struggle, honestly. And while we’ve chosen to delay announcing our 20-21 season for some obvious reasons – hello, Covid – we’ve also been figuring out how to be both a necessary town square for essential conversation AND a balm for our collectively battered souls.
Here’s the thing.
Still we are human. Still we love, we grieve, we rage and we commune with friends and family – okay, maybe via Zoom, but still – we grasp onto the humanness of one another as a kind of light for the darkness. And it is in that humanity and because of that humanity that we navigate forward, equally informed by hard truths and deep hope, and always in need of joy, dialogue, and heroes.
I’ve taken to thinking of the 52nd season as a play in three acts. While we have two works created particularly for our younger audiences, here’s the slate for us grown folk:
ACT ONE: THE JOY
A CHRISTMAS CAROL AT THE DRIVE IN: A LIVE RADIO PLAY and A VERY TERRY CHRISTMAS
Because we all need joy, we’ll be bringing you a brand new version of Charles Dickens’ tale of redemption – staged as a live radio play you’ll view from the socially distanced comfort of your car. And because she embodies joy every time she walks on a stage, we’ve asked Atlanta favorite Terry Burrell to create a holiday cabaret, for a night of music, mirth, and serious swing.
ACT TWO: THE DIALOGUE
HANDS UP and DATA
Wrestling honestly with the big ideas and the equally big challenges has always been the hallmark of our city. Written in the wake of the 2015 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, HANDS UP is a visceral and essential work of catalytic theatre that commands our attention and makes space for our passions. DATA, the winner of our Kendeda/National Graduate Playwriting Competition, is a taut and explosive expose of what happens when our personal data lands in the wrong hands.
ACT THREE: THE HEROES
ACCIDENTAL HEROES and TONI STONE
From a pair of film, television and Broadway legends, comes the story of two Hollywood legends who never quite saw that distinction coming. ACCIDENTAL HEROES tells the real life and wildly improbable story of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, set to original music from the equally legendary T Bone Burnett. TONI STONE, too, tells the story of an unexpected hero, the first woman to play professional baseball. In the days of the Negro Leagues and an America just beginning its civil rights journey, Toni was a leader, a hero, and a serious batter. (Just ask Satchel Paige.)