Welcome to Season 2 of the Alliance Theatre Podcast: An exploration of theater and the people who make it happen.

Join Alexis Woodard and Tamilla Woodard (Co-Artistic Director of Working Theater in NYC, and Director of WORKING: A Musical, which will premiere as part of the Under the Tent Series later this spring,) in conversation as they discuss the whats, whys, and hows of doing this musical at this time.

 

TAMILLA WOODARD is the co-Artistic Director of Working Theater, former BOLD Associate Artistic Director at WP Theater, and the co-founder of PopUP Theatrics. She also served as the associate director of Hadestown on Broadway. This very digital season, her work includes American Dreams by Leila Buck for Working Theater, Theater for One’s Here We Are series with plays by Nikole Salter and Delanna Studdi, PopUP Theatrics Long Distance Affair, Parsnip Ship and MCC’s This Is Where We Go and the Lucille Lortel nominated, Where We Stand by Donnetta Lavinia Grays for WP Theater, Baltimore Center Stage and Steppenwolf. Recently named one of 50 Women to Watch on Broadway, Tamilla is a graduate of Yale School of Drama, where she currently teaches. She is also a recipient of the Josephine Abady Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women.

ALEXIS WOODARD is an Atlanta-based Director, proud Spelman College Alumna and current Spelman Leadership Fellow at the Alliance Theatre. Her Directing Credits include: Romeo + Juliet, Eurydice (Spelman College), Finished What We Started (Morehouse College), Hamlet (The Tiny Theatre Company), as well as assistant directing for the Suzi Award winning play, Hands of Color (Synchronicity Theatre), A Kids Play About Racism (Bay Area Children’s Theatre), and Associate Director for A Christmas Carol: The Live Radio Play (Alliance Theatre). Upcoming Credits include: Co-Director for Hands Up (Alliance Theatre), and Co-Director for Othello (The Tiny Theatre Company). She has also worked backstage on several productions such as Holler If You Hear Me (True Colors Theatre) and Hospice + Pointing At The Moon (Alliance Theatre). Film Credits include: Hands Up Teasers (Co-Director) and When Morning Comes (Writer). She also wrote and shot her first short film, When Morning Comes, which discusses sexual assault on college campuses.

 

Learn more about WORKING: A Musical, premiering next month as part of the Under the Tent Series.

For more information about the Alliance Theatre Podcast please click here.

 

We’re so excited to return to live entertainment, including all three of our guest artists for our upcoming outdoor experience. The sales from tickets to these events directly benefit the guest artists, so learn more about each of them below, then grab tickets to join us under the tent!

TYRONE JACKSON & FRIENDS 

April 7 – April 8, 2021 

The tent will be rockin’ with Tyrone Jackson from April 7 – April 8! With an Atlanta Jazz Revival Theme, Tyrone will bring his favorite musicians and singers to perform jazz, blues, and ballads, including old classics, standard songs, and modern twists. Jackson is nationally recognized and has traveled the world as a solo artist and sideman. You might have even seen some of his work without realizing it: He composed original music for our productions of Ethel and Nick’s Flamingo Grill, in addition to four albums of his own. Don’t miss out on these two fun evenings!

Get tickets here

SISTER OMELIKA 

April 10, 2021 

Does quarantining have you down these days? Are you looking for a little elevation? Then get uplifted with Sister Omelika Kuumba and Friends in Soaring High! Sister Omelika is Spelman College’s Instructor of African Dance Forms in the Department of Dance Performance & Choreography and joins us for one night only to connect with audiences through drumming, dancing, singing and poetry. Come and be a part of the flight. Let’s soar together! 

Get tickets here

THE TINY THEATER COMPANY PRESENTS HAMLET 

April 15 – April 17, 2021 

This reimagination of the classic Shakespearean tragedy is told using elements of Black culture, music, rhythm, and call and response. Hamlet tells the story of a young prince, whose father’s death has uprooted the castle. We follow Ham and best friends Horatio and Marcellus as they get to the bottom of the mysterious happenings at the castle. It’s a story of revenge and resistance that was previously seen at Shakespeare in the Ponce and directed by our very own Spelman Leadership Fellow, Alexis Woodard! 

Get tickets here

This piece appears in the Alliance’s Under the Tent series edition of Encore.

Songwriter Eugene Russell IV reflects on the experience of setting Beautiful Blackbird LIVE to music at the Alliance Theatre 

As a father of two, Eugene Russell IV is quite familiar with the landscape of children’s music. And when he set out to bring Beautiful Blackbird LIVE to life, he knew his music had to have much more flare. Mostly, it needed more funk.

“I purposely went for something that adults would like as well, because as a father of little ones… I don’t know. Some kids’ music can be so annoying, I’m sorry,” the artist says with a laugh. “But I wanted something that grooved that was fun enough for the kids but funky enough for the parents. You know what I’m saying?” So out came the tunes to Beautiful Blackbird LIVE, which sit in a genre of “funky, soulful, family music.”

Read the full feature on Encore’s website.

 

March is Women’s History Month. We are celebrating the work of women playwrights who premiered their work at the Alliance Theatre. 

No position in theater is as coveted as that of the playwright. We often judge playwrights on how truthfully their work reflects society, but playwrights do more that reflect our world. They write new worlds into being. 

Playwrights can articulate a vision of the world that centers experiences that might have been overlooked, undervalued, invisible, and/or silent. 

At the turn of the last century, the first professional woman playwright in the United States, Martha Morton, was denied access to the national association for playwrights because she was a woman. In 1907, she and a group of other women formed the Society of Dramatic Authors that later merged with the all-male association to become the forerunner organization to the Dramatist Guild of America. 

While the situation today isn’t as restrictive as it was over a hundred years ago, the glass ceiling for women playwrights is palpable. 

The Count 2.0, a study published by the Dramatist Guild, found that 29% of plays produced on Off-Broadway and non-profit regional stages in the US were written by women (71% were by men) during the 2016-2017. This was an increase of 8.5% from earlier in the decade. While the number of women playwrights of color has increased over the years, only 6% of productions were written by women of color (WOC). 

Compared to the field, the Alliance Theatre’s strides toward gender parity have been larger. Over the past 10 years, 43% of all plays were written by women, 19% by WOC; 53% of plays that premiered at the Alliance were written by women, 21% by WOC.* Critical to this development is the Kendeda M.F.A Playwriting Competition, a one-of-a-kind national competition established by Artistic Director Susan Booth that transitions student playwrights to the world of professional theatre by providing winning playwrights a full production at the regional level. 

The work of equity is not done. We need programs that foster an inclusive and intersectional group of women playwrights, including trans women, whose voices have continued to be left out. We know that when playwrights embody, and speak from, a diverse range of experience that defy one notion of womanhood the whole is strengthened. We celebrate the women playwrights that have forged the way forward for the next generation of brilliant voices.

 

A Resource Guide of Monologues and Two-Person Scenes 

Anyone who has ever witnessed a play that speaks to their own lived experience knows the giddy joy and emotion that comes from a piece of writing that “fits”, especially when that experience is not part of the mainstream. 

I found that giddy joy recently when reading Meg Miroshnik’s Fairytale for Russian Girls, which premiered at the Alliance Theatre in the 2011-2012 season. As a woman from an immigrant family from Belarus, a post-Soviet territory, the cross-cultural struggle of these young women made me feel seen and their words/worlds could have been my own.

Finding a good “fit” is also critical for the development of the next generation of women artists and creatives. 

Four Alliance Theatre interns from Spelman and Oglethorpe — Chloe Jackson, Raiyon Hunter, Lauren Dixon, and Jordan Karem — compiled a resource guide of monologues and two-person scenes, written by women, for women. The resource brings to life some of the ways the Alliance’s repertoire has expanded to fit a diverse range of experiences that center the stories of women. They describe it “work…that pours into the women artists of tomorrow.”  

Enjoy tender and juicy morsels of writing from playwrights Janece Shaffer, Madhuri Shekar, Meg Miroshinki, Terry Burrell, Pearl Cleage, Mary Lynn Owen, Alix Sobler, Julia Bownell, and Eleanor Burgess.

DOWNLOAD RESOURCE

*This count does not include A Christmas Carol, variety or improv shows with no authors, or youth and family shows. Gender/race/ethnicity is based on self-reporting. 

 

New Plays By Women Playwrights @ The Alliance (2010-2020)

 

 

Play Title

Author

Season It Premiered

The Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at the Celebration of their First One Hundred Years

Pearl Cleage

2010-2011

The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls

Meg Miroshnik

2011-2012

Broke

Janece Shaffer

2011-2012

Holiday with the Chalks

Mary Brienza, Kathryn Markey, Leenya Rideout

2012-2013

What I Learned in Paris

Pearl Cleage

2012-2013

In Love and Warcraft

Madhuri Shekar

2013-2014

The Geller Girls

Janece Shaffer

2013-2014

The Tall Girls

Meg Miroshnik

2013-2014

The C.A. Lyons Project

Tsehaye Gesalyn Hébert

2014-2015

Tuck Everlasting

Claudia Shear*

2014-2015

Start Down

Eleanor Burgess

2015-2016

Troubadour

Janece Shaffer

2016-2017

Sheltered

Alix Sobler

2017-2018

Hospice & Pointing at the Moon

Pearl Cleage

2017-2018

Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous

Pearl Cleage

2018-2019

Approval Junkie

Faith Salie

2018-2019

Knead

Mary Lynn Owen

2018-2019

53% Of

Steph Del Rosso

2019-2020

The Alliance Theatre condemns the violent hate crime that occurred less than 3 miles from our theater on Tuesday, March 16th, and denounces all forms of violence against the AAPI community.

Our immediate thoughts are with the families of the eight victims and with the strong and vibrant Asian and Asian American community in Atlanta, and beyond, that are taking the lead in responding to this violence.  

Over the past year, we heard anti-Asian rhetoric escalate and witnessed how AAPI-owned restaurants and businesses carried the added burden of racism and xenophobia on top of a precarious economic situation. But the tragedy this week brought home the sheer magnitude of the subtle and overt forms of hate that have often crept under our radar, and our collective lack of action and accountability resulted in the heavy cost of the brutal killing of working-class Women of Color.

We honor and mourn the death of:

Xiaojie Tan 

Delaina Ashley Yuan

Paul Andre Michels

Daoyou Feng

Soon Chung Park

Hyun Jung Grant

Suncha Kim 

Yong Ae Yue

The story is sadly familiar, and how many times must we hear the same stories, and lose countless lives before we as other BIPOC and white allies do something about it?

This is an intersectional issue. Asian Americans have historically faced the contradiction of being both a model minority and perpetual foreigner used as a scapegoat during times of crisis; and Asian American women, who deal with sexism (hypersexualization, objectification) and racism are targets of violence produced through these biases.

As a theater, we aim to tell stories that combat the stereotypes that fuel hatred, but we cannot be allies onstage without standing by our AAPI partners, colleagues and friends right now off stage. As an institution we are interrogating how to meaningfully be in solidarity with our AAPI community and to amplify and support the work of rooting out the virus of racism. We insist that you also find how you individually can combat, challenge, and dismantle the various forms of hatred, oppression, and specifically anti-Asian racism that play a part in our community. 

We are being led by these statements released by local Asian American organizations and resources that offer ways to support our local community at this time as a place where we begin:

Donate:

 

“When you’re facing your biggest fear, shine your heart on the scariest part and you’ll find a lot of good love glowing in the dark!” – From Do You Love The Dark? the upcoming children’s book by resident artist Maya Lawrence.

How do you put all that this last year has been into words? Talk about dark.

March 13, 2021 marks one year since we closed our doors. At the time we were halfway through rehearsals for the Keneda winner 53% Of, had just opened our rockin’ family musical Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, and were about to invite our first audience of little ones to In My Granny’s Garden. We miss our building and yearn to be back in the audience getting our fix of live theatre—there is nothing like that in-person energy.

So how do we reflect on a year when our curtains have been closed? We asked our staff to “shine their hearts” and share some thoughts on a year in the dark.

 

We Laughed.

Sometimes the novelty of our new virtual world kept us laughing.

I sung “Here in My Room” (from Maybe Happy Ending) every day for like the first 6 months of the pandemic. I still sing it on a regular basis… It’s fine. I can stop anytime I want. No I can’t. Dang it, MHE!

—Collins Desselle

 

In the beginning, Zoom backgrounds brought me great joy. One day our brand manager showed up on the Coca-Cola Stage. Also – taking outdoor meetings in the sunshine when it’s 70 degrees outside is THE BEST.

—Kristen Silton

 

I’ve loved seeing sneak peeks into people’s lives – the art on their walls, their couches, random books that I recognize. I’ve also loved swapping sweatpants recommendations (thanks, Danielle!) and laughing over the same stupid jokes that we all enjoy because we’re too exhausted to come up with better ones.

—Ashley Elliott

Zoom zoom zoom. Make note of Ari’s Coca-Cola Stage background above.

 

We Cried.

We also mourned the losses a year of uncertainty and isolation brings together.

I was furloughed for about half of 2020 and while that was rough, I took the time to rediscover myself after an especially hard 2019. I think that’s the biggest personal thing that came out of this entire pandemic-time as a whole – rediscovering myself and learning how to be more than okay with just being alone.

—Ashley Elliott

The sign on the doors of the theatre when news first broke about the building shutting down due to the pandemic.

We Look Toward the Light.

But ultimately, we continue to reinvent what theater looks like. The Alliance created thousands of PPE masks for frontline workers, shifted to a virtual world creating theatre and educational offerings to stay connected; The Alliance Institute never skipped a beat, determined to stand with educators when they needed us most. We hosted a month long virtual educator conference, virtual summer camps, launched Alliance Theatre Anywhere (our new Digital Streaming platform,) premiered A Christmas Carol Drive-In in Atlanta’s Summerhill neighborhood, shared our first animated film Sit-In, created our first card game- ACTivism, and so much more.

I came into the role of Adult Programs Manager halfway through 2020, but was already working closely with our adult classes. In quarantine, I have spent most of my evenings managing adult classes by providing support to our adult teachers and students. Some nights inevitably come with stressful zoom meltdowns, complicated conversations on how to best download a PDF script, and countless phone call reminders. Though, most nights I am welcomed into students’ homes across the country with a warm smile and an invitation to join a community that persisted through some impossible setbacks. New friendships were made through tiny little boxes on a screen.

Theatre was created across state lines week after week.

All of this happened while theaters were shuttered and relationships were challenged, and it gave me hope in a time when I needed it most. We never stopped our adult classes, we jumped straight into a virtual format when we realized what we were up against. For instance, we have held 42 sessions of Virtual Voice Over since that fated day in March 2020. 

I am so proud of the resilience and grace shown by our adult teachers.

There were days when I wanted to give up and hide under my weighted blanket until we could return back to the building. Every night at 6:30pm, that would inevitably all fade away the minute I zoomed in and saw complete strangers separated by hundreds of miles laughing, learning, and living their best lives. 

—Robert Hindsman

The Palefsky Collision Project teens didn’t let a pandemic prevent them from making change.

 

This past year has been filled with more than I ever thought a year could fit. Honestly, it has left me rather speechless, but…

the one phrase that keeps bouncing in my mind is “find the light.”

As an actor, this phrase I would often hear directors shout from the abyss of a dark house now has an even deeper meaning. Every day we must make the intentional choice to find our light. For me — the light is brightened by the art, the innovation, and the resilience we have harnessed to keep going. From shows on our favorite app, Zoom, to getting back to live performances with Shakespeare in the Ponce. The light is brightened by my family, friends, and community, who have reminded me of the power of collective work and responsibility. Through all the darkness, I know that light remains, and I trust that we will continue to find and hold onto it.

—Jessenia Ingram

A snapshot of 2020’s socially-distanced A Christmas Carol.

 

With Covid came all three of my boys back home. My twins had to leave their senior years at college early, and my oldest did not want to ride out a pandemic in an apartment complex which for safety concerns would have cut him off from his family – specifically me, his dad and my 88-year-old mother. 

Since being home, and choosing to be extremely safe young adults, my boys have spent the most meaningful time with their grandmother, at a time when she most needed it. 

My mom has taught Kevin (one of the twins), my sister, and me bridge, she has cooked countless family meals with my oldest Jason; and she has spent endless hours with patient Brett either in deep political conversation or getting lessons on any number of devices she has yet to master. 

As Covid slowly comes to an end and my children move out and into their individual lives (one out last month, one out next week, and the third out this summer), we will look back at this year as time we would have rather not have to have had, but deeply grateful to have had it with and for my mother. 

It has been precious time indeed.  

—Jody Feldman

 

Gosh. There are just so many things. About 2020. About the way life happens, during, because of, in spite of, a global pandemic. 

I remember seeing my cardiologist — it was March 10, 2020. And I remember him telling me I needed to go home and stay away from people (his exact words). Of course I went back to the office (duh), until Jamie strongly encouraged me to follow doctor’s orders. And so I missed the Board meeting the next day, and the subsequent shut down. I’d kind of grabbed whatever I could out of my office and left. I set up base camp from home, like we all did. 

I realized pretty quickly that I was going to be alone. Like all alone. For a while. Like, a long while.

And, a single, soon-to-be empty-nester with a kid who happened to be out of town … I was alone … like, all alone … for a long while. 

I’m not going to lie. Despair set in. And it set in pretty quickly as we all began to realize we were going to be in this for a minute. I have a pretty serious, but manageable, chronic heart condition so I knew I was at higher risk. And I’ve been flying solo for a lot of years. And about 90% of what I could think sounded like this: “What in the world is life going to look like for me now. How am I going to do this. How am I going to do it alone. And who would have me now, anyway.” (And in fairness, I did also think “I have a truly extraordinary kid, I still have an incredible job, and I have a safe, warm, clean place to live.”) But there was always this thought, how am I going to do this. And how am I going to do this alone. Maybe for a long time, maybe forever. There was no amount of potato chips or chardonnay that was going to fix the kind of despair we’re talking about here. 

It was a deep ache. A really deep, sharp, wrenching ache. It permeated my days, and the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into a couple of months. I was more grateful for the advent of Zoom and things like Manager’s meetings than I want to admit. But my despair shrouded every single thought I had most days.

And one day, I actually woke up thinking … No. 

No, that’s not how I want to live. I refuse to live like that, in that kind of despair. And so I put on some lipstick and went for a walk and I think I read one of my daily readings out of The Book of Awakening (highly recommend). I worked hard. And I made a conscious decision to stay open. 

That day, I met the man I’ll marry next year.

And life kept happening. It was like the world slowed down for a moment. I watched friends and family care for sick and dying parents, I watched friends get horribly sick and fight their way to health again, I watched our country burn and go up in smoke and ashes, I watched the unbelievable generosity of human beings coming forward to help in whatever ways they could. I watched my daughter graduate from college and start her first job. I watched my nephew turn 18, without his father there to witness. I watched other friends figure out how they’d keep their children in school while they tried to work. I watched sweet kitties and dogs and babies pop up on Zoom screens in the middle of meetings. I watched friends start and end relationships. And I watched other friends lose jobs, look for work. 

It seems like most of us were trying to make friends with our own despair. 

I watched people sitting in parks, or driveways, or in front of computer screens — doing whatever possible to keep or establish connection. I watched my workplace push, push, push forward for so many reasons, and most of them probably included, very simply, trying to keep our community working and families fed.

I watched the statistics and the charts and the people, so sick and dying, the overwhelmed front-line workers, and some of the rest of us, bound by very real fear. I watched others laughing in restaurants and dancing in bars. I watched people being brave and incredible. I judged others as reckless, selfish.

I learned more about myself in COVID than I ever would have learned in the ‘real’ world. For me, COVID was the ‘real’ world. Is the real world. My priorities are cleaner. My judgement is perhaps a bit harsher, but honestly I think that’s for the better. I learned things about myself I didn’t know I needed to learn. But learn them I did, and I deeply, deeply hope I’ll continue that learning. And I also learned more about strength, and humility, and hope than I might have imagined I still needed to. I came into this thinking I knew about these things. What I learned instead was how little I knew.

There’s a Wendell Berry poem called “The Cold”. I’m pretty sure he didn’t write it about a pandemic. But it kind of works (for me anyway, but I’m kind of corny like that). Here’s to the melting, whenever it comes. And here’s to the strength, and humility, and hope (and oh yes, love) that I’ll carry forward, if I’m lucky.

The Cold

How exactly good it is

to know myself

in the solitude of winter,

my body containing its own

warmth, divided from all

by the cold; and to go

separate and sure

among the trees cleanly

divided, thinking of you

perfect too in your solitude,

your life withdrawn into

your own keeping

-to be clear, poised

in perfect self-suspension

toward you, as though frozen.

And having known fully the

goodness of that, it will be

good also to melt.

—Caitlin Way

 

 

As we look to that light at the end of the tunnel, stage lights and otherwise, we come out stronger than ever before; more adaptable, and maybe lighter ourselves. There is something to this learning to love the dark thing…

 

The Alliance Theatre would like to genuinely thank each and every one of our supporters this past year. For those that have given a donation, watched our digital content, attended our drive-in show, or plan to attend the upcoming Under the Tent Series, and more. It’s because of you that the Alliance Theatre is able to do what it does.

 

 

The Kenny Leon Internship is a season-long commitment that operates as a bridge opportunity for early-career artists of color. This is a skills-building/mastery position that is geared for those who want to learn more about arts administration while pursuing both personal and professional goals as artists. Get to know our current Kenny Leon Intern as she tackles this first-of-its-kind season.

First up, tell us about yourself: where are you from, where did you go to school, what did you study?

My name is Tyra Ann-Marie Wilson. I grew up in a small unincorporated town in middle Georgia called Bonaire. I went to Georgia Southern University and graduated in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in Theatre and a minor in Business Administration

Why did you want to be the Kenny Leon Intern for the Alliance Theatre?

It’s kind of a long short story. I applied two years in a row. I was living in Providence, Rhode Island at the time and decided to stay there because I signed a lease. This year I found myself applying again just at the beginning of quarantine. I think I even did it the day before the deadline. I wanted to do something new. I was an executive assistant in Rhode Island, and it was too far removed from the artistic process and the discussion of text. I just wasn’t afraid to go through another intern year to get into the part of administration that I wanted experience in.

What is the internship and what have you been working on?

I am the Kenny Leon Intern for Producing/Casting. I have been working on script submissions, virtual auditions, and the Alliance/Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition. I spent my days reading and responding to plays for literary, organizing and scheduling auditions, or speaking to playwrights about their pieces dramaturgically.

You’ve been in this role during strange COVID-times, correct? How has that been?

It has been hard for me personally because at the beginning of my internship I had just moved home with my parents. I have never physically been in the same room as people I’ve been working with for close to seven months. It’s different and the hard times we’ve been in were starting to affect my work. What I love about working here was that at every point I was supported and encouraged to do what I needed to be in a head space for work.

What will you take with you from this opportunity?

I hope to take with me a better understanding of what goes into producing and casting a show. I feel like a great deal of my year I have learned a lot about digital producing, and I’d love to get back into a traditional rehearsal room before I go. I’m not sure that will be safe by that time.

Where do you want to see yourself going once it’s over?

Honestly, if I could, I’d love to find a way to keep working with the Alliance in a literary and casting capacity. I know jobs are scarce right now so I will just keep my fingers crossed a position might open this summer. I’m wanting to move closer to the city and really make a home in Atlanta.

 

Interested in applying to be our next Kenny Leon Intern? Learn more here.

The Alliance Theatre is pleased to announce the inception of its Stage Management Fellowship.

Purpose.

The stage manager is the actor’s advocate, show’s guardian, and production’s liaison for all aspects of the production. They ensure the director’s vision is realized while creating a safe working environment for all. Too often, the stage manager is a white person even on a production where the majority of the cast and creative team are Black, Indigenous, or persons of color (BIPOC). After a year of intentionally listening to the needs of our BIPOC artist community, a through line surfaced: I wish there were more stage managers sitting at the table who looked like me. 

To help correct this imbalance, the Alliance theatre in Atlanta, GA is creating a Fellowship Program for those with recent MFA degrees in Stage Management. One person per season will be selected to spend a year in residence working in the Stage Management department. 

Application.

Candidates must 1) identify as a BIPOC theatre maker, 2) be an MFA in Stage Management student in their final year or have graduated from an MFA in Stage Management program in the past 3 years, and 3) be willing to relocate to Atlanta, Georgia for the fellowship.

Applications are open.

Selection.

A diverse panel of professional stage managers and theatre leaders will select the final candidate. The panelists will also serve as a resource to the Fellow during their time in residence. 

Experience.

The selected Fellow will spend a season in residence working as a stage manager at the Alliance Theatre. They will work as a stage manager or assistant stage manager on our Hertz Stage (LORT D) and/or Coca-Cola Stage (LORT B). At least one Coca-Cola Stage production will likely be a commercially enhanced, world premiere musical with a Broadway creative team. Our commercially enhanced musicals have involved Broadway legends like Casey Nicholaw and Jerry Mitchell. Industry leaders, including our Artistic Director Susan Booth and regional theatre artistic directors (Michael John Garcés, Kent Gash), often direct our Hertz Stage productions. This structure will expand the Fellow’s network in the local and national theatre communities. The Fellow will be on a minimum of 40-week Equity (LORT) contract with contributions made to Health and Pension. 

Additionally, the Fellow will be introduced to other theaters in Atlanta, adding to our collective stage manager pool should they choose Atlanta as their producing home. The Fellow will develop a network of mentors inside and outside the Alliance while building a resume of top-of-field work experience. 

The Fellow will be on a 40-week LORT contract with contributions to Health and Pension, and a $3,000 relocation stipend.

The deadline to apply has passed and applications are currently closed. The Awarded Fellow will be announced on May 15, 2021. The Fellowship Period runs from August 1, 2021 – May 31, 2022. 

For questions, please contact Liz.Campbell@alliancetheatre.org and Daviorr.Snipes@alliancetheatre.org.