Greetings from Rehearsal Hall 3 at the Alliance Theatre, where 19 remarkable young artists have convened for Day 3 of the Palefsky Collision Project! At present, the group is engaged in an African Dance & Yoruba Culture workshop facilitated by longtime Guest Artist Mama Yeye and Alex Acosta, accompanist. Over the steady 6/8 beat, I can hear the shared effort and the shared joy. It’s starting to sound like an ensemble in here – something special is percolating.
This summer – 2026 – marks the 25th anniversary of this Project, a 3-week summer intensive for rising 11th grade, 12th grade, and post-secondary students preparing for college and/or career. To celebrate this milestone, our team has prepared 3 new resources for partners who share our investment in elevating the voices of teens. Our hope is that these tools will inspire an expansion of Collision within Atlanta and beyond.
HOW-TO MANUAL
Written by Pearl Cleage with contributions from past and present Creative Team members, the First Pass Procedures Manual is a roadmap for utilizing the Collision model. From setting a vision to sustaining the Project, this guide details each step of the process in an approachable, flexible, and digestible manner.
My favorite passage is on page 6, which digs into the foundational pillars of our program: Safety, Rigor, Diversity, and Light. These are the ideals we turn and return to – daily, moment by moment – as we navigate the delicate and imperative work of listening to young people, of hearing them fully, of challenging them to lock in, of empowering them to turn their volume all the way up.
RESEARCH & EVALUATION
Led by Laura Wood, PhD (Lesley University) and Jason S. Frydman, PhD (North Carolina State University), this study investigated Community Belonging (needs fulfillment, group membership, influence, emotional connection), Hope (agency, pathways), and Perspective Taking with thorough examination of the 2025 ensemble, as well as input from a sample of the 500 program alumni.
Early results indicate that the Alliance Theatre’s Palefsky Collision Project, backed with quantitative data, delivers a relational pedagogy where respect, challenge, and collective authorship at a world-class theater environment support transformation that has potential beyond the scope of the Project, fostering community, belonging, hope and civic engagement.
Here’s what that looks like in practice. Relationships are everything – “I love you” is spoken generously and sincerely in this space. Meanwhile, the expectations are sky-high – this Creative Team believes completely in the brilliance and capability of these young artists and consistently pushes them to show up as their very best selves. The final performance is always excellent – but the success of this program is most evident in its quieter moments, like bumping into ensemble members during lunch, taking selfies over waffle fries and bubble tea, and overhearing their unfiltered thoughts on history, poetry, and democracy.
GREATEST HITS ALBUM
Produced by Music Director David Koté in partnership with Spencer Ford (Collision alum) and Justin Ellington, this Greatest Hits Album features 8 alumni vocalists and includes 11 newly recorded versions of the Project’s most inspiring, show-stopping musical numbers created over the past decade.
The album will be released on opening night (Friday, July 17), and information on how to stream it for free will become available this summer.
When I listen to it, I’ll picture my colleagues standing at the back of a theater during dress rehearsal – dancing and singing along, gesturing wholeheartedly for just a little bit more. More expression, more connection, more beauty, and more truth. More you. “The world needs to hear this!” I can hear them say. “Don’t make us wait for your greatness!”
On A Personal Note
In 2001, I myself was in 11th grade. I spent a lot of time on an elliptical, compulsively listening to show tunes – or otherwise poring over a 3-inch thick Guide to our country’s colleges and universities, wondering who I really was and dreaming about who I might grow up to be. I didn’t know then that a space like this could exist. Start without a script? No one star of the show? Activism through art? Grace for rehearsal – mistakes, mis-steps, and trying again – in life? These were foreign concepts to me then, some 20 years and 800 miles away.
If I could talk to that younger, more impressionable version of myself, I would tell her to enjoy the ride and buckle up for the Palefsky Collision Project in Atlanta, GA – because that’s where I really learned how to be encouraged and trust the process. It’s where I found my place standing at the back of a theater, a teacher turned Producer, cheering alongside this truly outstanding Creative Team.
Congratulations on this meaningful milestone, Rosemary Newcott, Rodney Lamar Williams, Patrick McColery, Pearl Cleage, David Koté, Sam Provenzano, Maya Lawrence, Autumn Stephens, Kerrington Griffin, SaRee Grimes, Taylor Mills, Olani Selamu, Jay Williams and team! And thank you, Chris Moses (whose humility is so defining, he doesn’t want anyone to know that this year also marks his 25th anniversary at the theater). From the bottom of my heart, I am forever changed by the experience of hopping on this moving train, and I have learned more from your example than you will ever know.
Come Curious. Leave Changed.
Join us for transformative theater that speaks to the heart of Atlanta.
Cast Announced for the Alliance’s Production of the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-Winning Play
Purpose
BY BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS
DIRECTED BY KEITH ARTHUR BOLDEN
AUGUST 28 – SEPTEMBER 20, 2026
ON THE COCA-COLA STAGE
The Alliance Theatre today announced the cast of its upcoming production of PURPOSE. Written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and directed by Keith Arthur Bolden, PURPOSE runs on The Coca-Cola Stage, August 28 – September 20, 2026. Opening night is Friday, September 4, 2026. This production of PURPOSE is co-produced with McCarter Theatre Center (January 21 – February 13, 2027).
In Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning play, the Jasper family is gathering for a long-overdue reunion. For decades, they’ve been the embodiment of Black political power and public virtue – a dynasty of ministers, activists, and changemakers whose legacy has shaped generations. But when a young outsider arrives with questions no one is prepared to answer, carefully guarded secrets begin to surface. Over the course of one unforgettable evening, old wounds reopen, loyalties are tested, and the truth threatens to upend everything the family has built. At once biting, hilarious, and deeply human, PURPOSE asks what we owe our families, our communities, and ourselves.
“I was raised in Los Angeles by Southern parents who gave me the church, gave me faith, and taught me that God would always be by my side. They also taught me that every life has purpose,” said Director Keith Arthur Bolden. “Purpose is the driving force of your life, and once you discover it, you can move forward with a certain freedom and clarity—as though you are finally on cruise control—because your steps are ordered and rooted in your truth. What I love about Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s play is that it challenges us to ask who gets to define that purpose: our parents, our faith, our family’s legacy, or the quiet truth within ourselves. PURPOSE is funny, painful, deeply familiar, and filled with the kinds of questions Black families have carried from generation to generation.”
The cast of PURPOSE features Jerome Preston Bates (Broadway: Jitney, Netflix: Don’t Ever Wonder) as Solomon Jasper, Veanna Black (True Colors Theatre: Good Bad People, Film: Tyler Perry’s The Six Triple Eight, National Geographic’s Genius) as Morgan Jasper, Donna Biscoe (Lifetime: Drop Dead Diva, TBS: Meet the Browns) as Claudine Jasper, Thomas Neal Antwon Ghant (Alliance Theatre: A Christmas Carol, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) as Junior Jasper, Victoria Omoregie (Alliance Theatre: Fat Ham, Bust) as Aziza Houston, and Travis Turner (Alliance Theatre: Seize the King, Goodnight, Tyler) as Nazareth Jasper. Understudies for the production include Robert John Connor, Sheri Gilbert-Wilson, Ashlee Rachel McNeil, Brittani H. Minnieweather, Charlie T. Thomas, and Roderick Whitney, Jr.
The creative team of PURPOSE is led by Director Keith Arthur Bolden and includes Kenny Leon Directing Fellow and Associate Director Denzel Taylor, Scenic Designer Sotirios Livaditis, Costume Designer Shilla Benning, Lighting Designer Ben Rawson, Composer Dwight Andrews, and Sound Designer Rasean Davonté Johnson.
Additional production support includes Stage Manager R. Lamar Williams, Assistant Stage Manager Phoebe Sweatman, Production Management Lead Haylee Scott, and Stage Management Production Assistant Myah Harper.
With PURPOSE, celebrated playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Appropriate, An Octoroon) delivers a thrilling, sharply observed drama about legacy, faith, and the courage it takes to confront the truth. This gripping and darkly funny drama has been described as “a thumping, riveting, guns-blazing, major new American play” (New York Daily News) that is “unstoppably fierce, funny, and ruthless!” (New York Post).
Come Curious. Leave Changed.
Join us for transformative theater that speaks to the heart of Atlanta.