July 2021 | Alliance Theatre

Single Tickets for all 2021 productions in the 53rd season are ON SALE NOW.

After a year in the dark, reimagining and rediscovering what live theater can be, we are ready for this reillumination of who we are as humans, as artists, as storytellers, and as a theater.

The 2021/22 Season brings with it dramas, comedies, musicals, and new works. We’ll also celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Kathy & Ken Bernhardt Theatre for the Very Young and the 20th Anniversary of the Palefsky Collision Project – two pivotal education programs that bring theater to the hearts and minds of Atlanta youth.

To prepare for audiences to return to the theater, the Alliance has replaced all HVAC units with HVAC ionization systems, which provide a 99.4% reduction of COVID-19 within 30 minutes. HVAC ionization is more effective than other air-cleaning methods and helps kill other types of viruses, such as the flu, and air pollutants. The Alliance has also increased the cleaning schedule of surfaces in the theater, modified the ticketing process to eliminate physical tickets, and increased the number of hand-sanitizing stations across the campus. We will continue to closely monitor local, state, and federal policies regarding indoor activities and plan our safety protocols accordingly.

Memberships and Season tickets are on sale now. Single tickets for the 2021 productions are on sale now and are available to purchase below. 2022 productions and productions featured on Alliance Theatre Anywhere will be available at a later date.

SINGLE TICKETS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE IN THE 2021/22 SEASON:

ON THE COCA-COLA STAGE

DARLIN’ CORY (World Premiere Musical)
September 8 – October 3, 2021
Book by Phillip DePoy
Music by Kristian Bush
Lyrics by Phillip DePoy and Kristian Bush
Directed by Susan V. Booth

Set against the backdrop of 1930s Appalachia, DARLIN’ CORY is a haunting new musical by playwright & novelist Phillip DePoy (EDWARD FOOTE) and Sugarland’s front man & Grammy Award winner Kristian Bush (TROUBADOUR). In a tiny mountain town with no road in – and no road out – a community carries secrets of all sizes. But when a young woman with ambition and intelligence collides with a pastor deeply committed to preserving the status quo, cracks begin to form in the town’s well-constructed façade. And when a stranger appears with a mysterious backstory and the best moonshine anyone’s ever tasted – some of those secrets threaten to spill. With an original folk-country score, this modern-day myth inspired by local lore promises to leave audiences on the edge of their seats.

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A CHRISTMAS CAROL
November 12 – December 24, 2021
By Charles Dickens
Adapted by David H. Bell
Directed by Leora Morris

The Alliance Theatre’s beloved production A CHRISTMAS CAROL will return to the Coca-Cola Stage this year with an exciting new adaption, including a completely reimagined set design and stunning new costumes. Audiences will be transported to the streets of London to revisit the timeless story of Ebenezer Scrooge’s journey to redemption, told with beautiful live music and an all-star cast. Join the Alliance Theatre for one of Atlanta’s most treasured holiday traditions.

Tickets

ON THE HERTZ STAGE

THE NEW BLACK FEST’S HANDS UP: 7 PLAYWRIGHTS, 7 TESTAMENTS
October 8 – 31, 2021
By Nathan James, Nathan Yungerberg, Idris Goodwin, Nambi E. Kelley, Nsangou Njikam,
Eric Holmes, and Dennis Allen II
Co-Directed by Keith Arthur Bolden and Alexis Woodard

Across seven monologues written by seven Black playwrights, HANDS UP depicts the realities of Black America from the perspective of varying genders, sexual orientations, skin tones, and socioeconomic backgrounds. The play was originally commissioned in 2015 by the New Black Fest in response to a police officer fatally shooting an unarmed Black teenager, Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. The themes and stories it tells still ring true today. HANDS UP is produced in association with Spelman College.

Tickets

CLUB HERTZ LIVE
December 8 – 24, 2021

Experience a special concert series featuring some of Atlanta’s most exciting performers and musicians in a relaxed lounge atmosphere. CLUB HERTZ LIVE will feature a new performer each night and a variety of genres during the month of December. Bands and performers will be chosen by a panel of music-industry professionals.

Tickets

KATHY & KEN BERNHARDT THEATRE FOR THE VERY YOUNG

(KNOCK, KNOCK)
December 2 – 23, 2021
Selig Family Blackbox Theatre at Alliance Theatre
Created by Olivia Aston Bosworth & Samantha Provenzano
Directed by Samantha Provenzano

Come in from the cold and celebrate community, family, and warmth this holiday season! Welcome to The Apartment Building. Below us, above us, and beside us, the residents are preparing for the holidays and trying to stay warm. Join us on a floor to floor adventure, meeting and celebrating with a variety of friends who all call The Apartment Building home. Surprises hide behind each door — all you need to do is (Knock, Knock).

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See every show in our season by purchasing an Alliance Theatre Membership!

To: Bari Newport, Producer

Members of the Collision X Team

From: Pearl Cleage

Re: Collision Post Mortem

Date: August 8, 2011

“Collision is like jazz. We all get in a room together and improvise.”

Rodney Williams

“We really all pitch in and help ourselves through the experience.”

Rosemary Newcott

The most challenging thing about the Collision Project is trying to find a way to describe it that gives the interested outsider a glimpse of how unique and amazing and necessary and useful this project is on every level. It taps directly into the deep well of truth and curiosity and honesty and vulnerability and fierce determination to be heard that is found in young people around the world. Metro Atlanta teens are no different. I had no doubt the participants would be an interesting group of young people. That was not the problem. The problem was worrying. As a playwright with a fairly traditional way of developing scripts, I couldn’t get my mind around how I was going to write a script with input from 21 young people I’d never met, some of whom were writers, but most of whom were not. I couldn’t figure out how I could possibly get to know them well enough in two weeks to write anything for them that made sense. That was before I understood that I wasn’t going to be writing for them. I was going to be writing with them.

I also second guessed our decision to use The Declaration of Independence as our text. While I was excited by ideas of citizenship and national change in these strange and amazing times, and in spite of the fact that my post-Obama embracing of my American-ness was the major question I was exploring in my own work, I wasn’t sure what impact the document itself would have on people for whom history seems to have less and less relevance to their real lives. In the mist of all that worrying, I kept trying to get someone to define the playwrights role for me, but everybody just kept telling me it was something magical and wonderful and different every time. “We use the gifts in the room,” Rosemary e-mailed, which was not comforting to me. What if the gifts in the room were not complimentary to my own? Did I get veto power or was that against the whole spirit of the project?

This worrying is important because it is my firm belief that most writers are worriers. Especially playwrights. It is the natural outcome of spending long hours arguing all sides of every question in your own head in order to give each of the characters you’re creating a fair shake at winning the discussion, proving the premise and earning the love of audiences everywhere. The love of the audiences is important since there are usually actors involved and how old were these kids anyway?

Turns out, I didn’t need to worry. Rodney was right. It was one long, passionate improvisation on The Declaration of Independence that I can honestly say gave me great hope for the next generation. The young people I had the great pleasure to encounter in Collision X came from as close as Grady High School and as far away as Social Circle. They were a bright, outspoken mixture of all the qualities that make it easy to be a good teacher, and a good student. They had opinions, strong opinions, about almost everything, but they also had amazing compassion towards each other. They listened deeply to vastly different points of view without ever shutting off discussion or masking their real emotional reactions to sensitive topics. They were world class huggers.

They challenged my listening skills, especially at first when I wanted to correct them when their ideas didn’t reflect my own. When I wanted to assert my seniority, my status, my power and tell them how they should think about every little thing. When I wanted to make sure they understood the complexity of Thomas Jefferson and the humanity of Sally Hemmings. When I wanted to look at them as if their world was the same one I had inhabited at fifteen or sixteen or eighteen, which of course, it is not. They made me slow down and look at them individually, one by one, and each by each, until Alex wasn’t Andy and Max wasn’t Kevin and no way I would confuse Gina and Dina and Ameena or Teddy and Noah or the ones who were already searching for the truth with the ones who weren’t sure what they were searching for, but which didn’t mean they weren’t looking just as hard.

They made me laugh and they made me remember. They made me want to know what they had to say and want to listen harder to what they didn’t say. They allowed me to see them so clearly that I could put together a piece that sounded like them because it was their words, their thoughts, their emotions and confusions and yearnings that they had put on paper and handed to me, or e-mailed to me, and then hoped I would make them look good. I think we did better than that. We made them look like themselves. The script was a mirror of our three-week journey together and a group photograph of who they were at this particular moment in their lives. We had encouraged them to consider their citizenship. They responded to the challenge by also considering their humanity.

I think what the Collision Project actually does through a rigorous three weeks of exercises, activities and discussions is encourage participants to have faith in themselves and in each other. I think they emerge energized, empowered and hopeful, as do those of us who are privileged to be their guides.

One of the most important things about Collision is also, I would guess, one its biggest challenges when it comes to funding sources. It may seem that “only 20” people are affected because only 20 young people are chosen for the project, but I think that only cannot be allowed to stand. We know that one person can change the world and we teach young people this truth all the time. We ask them to consider “the power of one,” and to stand up for what they believe, even if they must stand alone. We point to people like Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King, Jr., and we say that their commitment and their courage transformed the times in which they lived. We tell them they are that person, too. If we believe it, we must believe that transforming the lives of this small group of young people is a part of the process of changing the world into a more humane, more compassionate, more caring place.

Everyone who made this project happen contributed to the great experience we all had this summer, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the perfectly balanced partnership between Rosemary and Rodney that guided the whole process is such a loving way without ever expecting less than each participant’s best attention and intent. I thank you, all of you, for one of the best creative experiences of my life.

And to the playwrights who are fortunate enough to work with Collision in the future, I have these few words of advice: Just think of it like jazz.

“All it takes is one person to choose hope, to choose to make a difference, and the world will change.”

David Krieger, Choose Hope

Twenty years ago, Susan Booth wanted to create a summer program for metro-Atlanta teens that would use a classic theatre text as a catalyst for the creation of brand-new work, devised by the participants in collaboration with founding director, Rosemary Newcott, stage manager/sound designer, Rodney Williams, and a revolving roster of playwrights. In anticipation of the unexpected things that happen when artists and ideas collide, she named it The Collision Project.

Ten years later, Chris Moses, invited me to become one of those playwrights. At the end of this piece, I’ve included a recently discovered 2011 email that details my response to that invitation, but suffice it to say, I reluctantly agreed. I had no experience working with high school students. Plus, I couldn’t get a satisfactory answer from anybody about what the Collision process was, exactly. As a playwright, I wanted parameters, guidelines, rules of the road, but none of those things seemed to be forthcoming from my soon to be collaborators who smiled and reassured me everything would be fine.

In desperation, with my first Collision only a few weeks away, I went back to Rodney in desperation. “Well, it’s kind of like jazz,” he said. “We all get in a room together and improvise.”

Although at the time that only added to my terror, he was right. What was supposed to be a one-time gig so moved me, so reassured and revitalized and energized me that as soon as our final performance was over, I immediately began trying to figure out how to ask Chris Moses if I could do it just one more time. I am so grateful that he said yes. Patrick McColery, our new director, had shared that first Collision summer with me and he was hooked, too. From that day to this, Patrick and I have walked every step of our Collision journey together, and every summer, we join Rodney and David Kote, our musical director, in putting a small tribe together and seeing where the spirit leads us.

In the last ten years, we’ve explored plays, novels, films, speeches and our country’s founding documents. In the process, we’ve had the blessing of listening to the dreams and visions of the next generation of theatre makers; world changing young citizen artists, who amaze and exhaust and transform us every single time.

We can hardly believe that this is our 20th anniversary. Sustained by a generous endowment from Vicki and Howard Palefsky, Susan Booth’s dreams of a program that would challenge and change Atlanta teens has now “graduated” over 400 young people who have seen their power manifested and magnified by their Collision experiences in a way that they usually can’t describe any better than we can, even after all these years. But we keep trying.

For our 20th Anniversary summer, we have chosen our first all musical text, Marvin Gaye’s 1971 masterpiece, “What’s Going On?” On the occasion of its 50th anniversary this year, Rolling Stone Magazine named it the best album of all time. Wherever you would rank it among your personal favorites, the album has undeniable culture and artistic significance and it lends itself to a better understanding of context, one of the hallmarks of the Collision method. One of the things we do every summer is offer our participants an approach to thinking. We don’t tell them what to think. We show them a way of thinking that hopefully enlarges their understanding of context and gives them a greater appreciation of the interconnectedness of ideas in the process of creative expression.

1971 was a year of great upheaval and confusion in America. There are so many ways to consider that American moment through the lens of Marvin’s music. I picture the music and the lyrics of the “What’s Going On?” album as the shining center of a wagon wheel (like the ones on country singer/songwriter Porter Wagoner’s best costumes!) The spokes of that wheel would radiate out as we explore some of the ideas that Marvin is singing about by providing relevant context.

So, in celebration of our 20th year, we would like to invite you to take this creative journey of ideas with us, from these early February moments of discovery, through the Spring interview process where we will find our new tribe, to the three weeks in July when they become an ensemble, culminating in two performances of a wholly original work. I invite you to be a part of the magic that happens every summer when we surrender to the process and improvise as if our lives depended on it. Because they do!

Here are the main spokes I’m exploring to get ready for this summer. And don’t worry! There will not be a pop quiz at the end of the process for you or for our participants! Everybody is free to roam around at will! I guarantee that anywhere you land you will find something interesting.

Motown: A Cultural Force

“What’s Going On?” The 1971 album by Marvin Gaye will be our basic text. Even the most cursory listen will reveal the artistry and political passion of this masterwork.
“Hitsville: The Making of Motown.” A Showtime documentary with an amazing sequence of Martin Gaye actually producing each track of the title song. We also learn how reluctant Motown founder Berry Gordy was to release such political music and why.
Where Did Our Love Go? by Nelson George. The book offers a cultural history of Motown by music critic Nelson George and more information about Martin Gaye and other Motown artists as well as the times in which they lived. It’s a perfect companion piece to “Hitsville.”

The Vietnam War

“Dear America: Letters from Vietnam.” A heartbreaking documentary from HBO with a companion volume of actual letters home from soldiers on the front lines in Vietnam. The average age of the soldiers is 19, not much older than our Collisioners. Marvin Gaye’s brother’s experiences in Vietnam prompted him to write “What’s Going On?” The letters in this documentary could have been his letters home.
Bloods, a wonderful oral history by Wallace Terry that views the Vietnam War through the eyes of the black soldiers who called themselves “Bloods.” Marvin must have heard stories like these from his brother.
“Vietnam: A Film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, produced for PBS. For those who want to dig deeper, this multi-part documentary fully explores the history, the war and the aftermath.
“For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf,” by Ntozake Shange. This groundbreaking choreopoem introduces the character of Beau Willie, a Vietnam veteran who returns home brutalized by war and consumed by rage. When he turns that rage on his wife and children, there are tragic consequences. In “Save the Children,” Marvin Gaye sings of the plight of black children.

Racial Injustice/Inner City America

“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” written and performed by Gil Scott-Heron who turned an unblinking eye on racial injustice and the way it manifests in urban America. Those same concerns resulted in Marvin’s “Inner City Blues.”
“The Last Poets,” an album written and performed by The Last Poets. This jazz influenced spoken word classic explores the same urban landscape that Marvin was writing and singing about.
“The Bottle,” written and performed by Gil Scott-Heron, this song like Marvin’s “Flyin’ High,” looks at the problem of drug and alcohol abuse in urban America.

Environment/Climate Change

“An Inconvenient Truth, Parts One and Two.” Al Gore’s groundbreaking documentaries are a crucial introduction to the crisis of climate change. An awareness of our threatened environment led Marvin to write “Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology).”
Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson was published in 1962 and warned of the danger presented by the use of pesticides.
“I Am Greta,” a documentary about activist Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future movement brings the environmental crisis right into the present day.
“The Hill We Climb,” 2021 Inaugural poem by Amanda Gorman shows the continuing influence of politically conscious young artists on American culture.

That is just some of what we will be exploring this summer through the lens of Marvin Gaye’s musical masterpiece. As you can see, we take our improvising seriously!

Last Spring when we were first considering using “What’s Going On?” as our text, I stepped out on the front porch with my husband one rainy night and as we stood there enjoying the sound of the rain and an occasional low rumble of thunder, we heard music coming through my neighbor’s open windows. It was that unmistakable horn at the opening of the title song of the album and it was so perfectly beautiful and beautifully perfect that I turned to my husband and said, “That’s what we’re using for Collision this summer.” And he just nodded because, like me, he knows a sign when he hears one. Especially on a rainy Atlanta evening when there’s music in the air.

As we get ready to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Palefsky Collision Project, we had a chance to sit down and talk to Distinguished Artist in Residence and Collision Project playwright Pearl Cleage. Now in her 11th year as one of the lead creators and mentors for Collision, Pearl reflected on the highlights of connecting with an exceptional group of Atlanta teens each summer and the impact this project has had on her life.

Write down 3 highlights from this past summer.
I had to do 5! My highlights are: Watching the participants learn to trust each other while watching myself learn to trust the process, watching Rosemary create a movement vocabulary that we could use for the final piece, watching the Colony Square “My Land” flash mob (such courage and craziness!), taking in the Radcliffe Bailey show and the Youth Symphony performance on the same day, and watching the participants find their own words in the script.
Write down top 3 dreams for the Collision Project
1. Publication of Collision scripts for use in high schools
2. More people could be trained to do Collision without losing the transformative essence of the experience.
3. A budget that would allow for a lighting person
What is the biggest strength of Collision?
I think the biggest strength of Collision is that it opens the minds and hearts of a group of young people in a way that transforms their lives at a critical moment in their development. The experience encourages honest dialogue and deep listening.
What is the biggest weakness of Collision?
At first, I would have said it should last another week, but I think the imperative to get going and get it done is part of why it is so wonderfully satisfying when it all comes together. I can’t think of any weaknesses.
How does Summer Collision influence the rest of the year? The Alliance? The Woodruff?
It transforms 20 young people. It pushes them to think, to trust, to listen more deeply. Each one of these young people will carry what they’ve learned into the next school year. I believe this is a good thing. I also think the participants will be eager to extend their experience here and participate in other programs. As audience members, as participants in other programs of the Education Department, as performers. In one day during Collision, we worked at the Alliance, went across the courtyard to get a tour of the Radcliffe Bailey exhibit, came back from lunch to enjoy a performance of the Atlanta Youth Symphony. Some of our participants had never been to any museum in their whole lives. Many had never been the Symphony. By exposing them to the rich cultural offerings at the Woodruff, we encourage them to embrace and enjoy the whole place, not just one component.

The goal of the new fellowship program is to create opportunities for BIPOC MFA Stage Management graduates, leading to a more diverse field of stage managers.

Shaina Pierce is a recent graduate of the University of Alabama and has worked with the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Cloverdale Playhouse, The Montgomery Ballet, and Alabama Repertory Dance Theatre.

After conducting a thorough national search, the Alliance Theatre is pleased to announce that Shaina Pierce has been chosen as the inaugural Stage Management Fellow for the Alliance Theatre, beginning August 1, 2021, and continuing until the end of our 2021/22 Season.

Shaina Pierce is a recent graduate of The University of Alabama and received her MFA in stage management. While at UA, some of her credits include The Merchant of Venice, Intimate Apparel, and Legally Blonde (int. covid). She has taught and mentored undergraduate stage managers and enjoys learning as much as she does sharing her artistry. Previous credits include Comedy of Errors, Cinderella, and Disney’s The Little Mermaid at The Alabama Shakespeare Festival. She stage-managed The Last Five Years and The Boys Next Door at the Cloverdale Playhouse. She has also worked for the Montgomery Ballet’s The Nutcracker and stage-managed Alabama Repertory Dance Theatre at UA. Shaina has been a part of numerous staged readings as well as zoom recorded readings.

As a Stage Management Fellow, Pierce will spend her first year of post-graduate school in residence working as a contributing member of the stage management department at the Alliance Theatre. She will work as the stage manager or assistant stage manager primarily on the Coca-Cola Stage, including the new version of a holiday favorite A Christmas Carol; a co-production with another regional theatre; and a commercially enhanced, world premiere musical with a Broadway-experienced creative team. Pierce will be presented with opportunities to network within the Atlanta theatre community, potentially adding to our collective stage manager pool should she choose Atlanta as her producing home. Additionally, Pierce will develop a network of mentors inside and outside the Alliance while building a resume of top-of-field work experience.

“I’m thrilled and excited for this opportunity to work with such a talented group of people at the Alliance Theatre,” Pierce says. “This opportunity means the world to me. I look forward to learning more about stage managing at a higher level and getting back into the theatre!”

ABOUT THE STAGE MANAGEMENT FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM

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.” We must correct this imbalance not only at the Alliance Theatre but as an industry if we want our productions and staff to reflect the communities we serve. The Alliance is linking arms with stage management graduate programs, creating a pipeline of full-time work for emerging BIPOC stage managers to diversify the field: the Stage Management Fellowship Program. To apply, 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. A diverse panel of professional stage managers and theatre leaders selected the final candidate, and the panelists will also serve as a resource to the Fellow during their time in residence.