The New York Times just called DATA “90 minutes of ticktock action, forwarded in snappy dialogue [with] the feel of a well-paced television procedural… the payoff is exciting, in an Aaron Sorkin meets Michael Lewis way.”
“That moment when people realize how precariously they claim space in the world is a turning point in “Data,” produced by the Alliance Theatre and this year’s winner of the Alliance/Kendeda competition for playwrights in graduate school. In this case, the playwright, Matthew Libby, had the requisite background not only in drama but also in high-tech, which is both the subject of the play and the way it got rescued when the pandemic foreclosed on a live, staged production.
The tech also provides a neat visual counterpoint to the story of Maneesh (Cheech Manohar), a programmer at a data-mining company called Athena. When he is asked to transfer to a unit developing a secret algorithm for predicting terrorist acts against the United States government, Maneesh is forced to weigh the benefits to himself against the potential harm to others. The others are immigrants — including Maneesh’s own parents.
If that’s too neat of a setup, it’s hardly science fiction; real-world cases involving data-mining behemoths like Palantir and Cambridge Analytica have raised similar concerns. In any case, the payoff is exciting, in an Aaron Sorkin meets Michael Lewis way. As directed by Susan V. Booth, the Alliance’s artistic director, the production leaps headlong past its problems. Certainly its 90 minutes of ticktock action, forwarded in snappy dialogue between Maneesh and two colleagues — one principled (Clare Latham) and one not (Jake Berne) — has the feel of a well-paced television procedural.
Better than television, though, is the disorienting effect of the green screen technology, which allows the actors, who were actually 10 to 20 feet apart while filming, to appear together, even in endless games of table tennis. As you wonder how the effect was achieved you are brought up short by the contrast with the content: What does it mean when ethics becomes a kind of trick and a game?”
— “Three Dramas Explore the Margins of the Digital Form,” Jesse Green for The New York Times
Read the full feature here.
Due to popular demand, DATA has been extended through June 6. Stream the show on-demand here.
“Popular local theater resumes shows with your safety top of mind.”
The Alliance Theatre closed its doors on March 13, 2020. Despite being closed for more than a year, the Alliance continues to serve the community.
“The artists of our costume shop made 7,000 masks for Grady and Emory Healthcare. They made 1,300 surgical gowns. They made masks to donate to YMCAs, to We Love You Buford Highway, the Latin American Association,” says Susan V. Booth, Jennings Hertz Artistic Director. She adds- “Our educational programming, which so many families and parents and educators rely on, immediately turned to digital delivery.”
Haylee Scott, COVID Coordinator, states “we are in an outdoor tent space with sides up so that we are getting open air flow. We have 2-person and 4-person seating pods for our audiences with 6-feet of distance between all of those. We have mobile and e-ticketing only. And masks are required for all front-of-house staff and patrons.”
Susan Booth says “nothing in the world makes me happier than the thought of saying ‘Welcome Home’ to Atlanta as they walk into their theater.”
Watch the full feature on WSB-TV Channel 2 – Atlanta.
Atlanta Magazine News
Atlanta’s 500 Most Powerful Leaders in 2021: Arts, Sports, & Entertainment
Among Kenny Blank, Donald Glover, Tyler Perry, and Usher, are two of our Alliance jewels and artistic leaders: Jennings Hertz Artistic Director, Susan V. Booth and Distinguished Artist in Residence, Pearl Cleage. In case you needed some refreshing, read about the cultural accomplishments and contributions they’ve made towards bettering our city and world.
Susan V. Booth
Since 2001, Susan Booth has brought national attention to Atlanta’s theater scene as artistic director of the Alliance Theatre, where she’s launched six productions to Broadway, won a Regional Theatre Tony Award, and directed world premieres by Pearl Cleage, Natasha Trethewey, John Mellencamp, and Stephen King. She has also initiated the Palefsky Collision Project for teens, the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition, the Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab, and local producing partnerships and regional collaborative productions. Booth has directed productions at theaters including the Goodman, the La Jolla Playhouse, and the Actors Theatre of Louisville, and has taught at Northwestern, DePaul, and Emory.
Education: Denison University, Northwestern University (MA)
Notable achievement: Led the Alliance through an off-campus season that produced plays in 13 locations across the city, while building a new theater to return to in our 50th year
Best advice received: Johnnetta Cole told me to stop worrying about filling someone else’s shoes. “Get your own shoes,” she said.
Pearl Cleage
Pearl Cleage is the author of 15 plays, eight novels, two books of poetry, two books of essays, a book of short stories, and a memoir. She worked in politics as speechwriter/press secretary to Mayor Maynard Jackson and as a consultant in many local political races. She has worked with the Palefsky Collision Project at the Alliance for 10 years as a playwright and mentor, and recently completed her first animated feature for young audiences with Sit-In, a story of movements, past and present. She is the wife of author Zaron W. Burnett Jr., with whom she recently collaborated on In My Granny’s Garden, a book for the Mayor’s Summer Reading Club, with illustrations by Radcliffe Bailey. She is the mother of one daughter and the grandmother of five.
Education: Spelman College
Notable achievements: New York Times bestselling author, nationally produced playwright
Best advice received: From John Lewis: “Make good trouble.”
Bucket list: Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon
Check out the full list here.
“What if we wrote a show about what it means to be human and told the story through robots?”
When book-writer and lyricist Hue Park emailed his writing partner Will Aronson suggesting such a concept, the pair never batted an eye at the irony of using sci-fi to explore the gift of everyday life.
“Now that everyone’s spending more and more time looking at their cell phones, spending time online, and not actually talking to other people face to face, I feel like we are getting more and more used to not expressing our emotions as much as we used to,” Park shares. “We are slowly turning into robots, in a way. So I think that was one of the first inspirations to write the show.” Park says this inspiration initially sparked when he heard the lyrics to a Damon Albarn song, “Everyday Robots,” talking about how we are all trying to find belonging in our cell phones.
Despite its futuristic premise, Maybe Happy Ending is not so much about looking towards the future and the dangers therein, but about valuing interpersonal opportunities here and now.
“I don’t think we’re saying technology is bad,” Park says. “I think we’re asking, ‘What’s the most magical experience that we get to have as humans, when we are only on this planet for a limited time?’ We felt the robots were more human than us, so we let them teach us about the things we’d forgotten about life.”
Part of the reason behind choosing robots was that the characters could look at the human experience with a fresh eye, viewing emotions and connection with wonder.
To read the full article, please visit Encore Atlanta’s website here.
Time Out writer and critic Eleanor Ringel Cater has reviewed the Alliance’s production of Warrior Class for the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Here are a few things she had to say:
Warrior Class, currently on the Alliance’s Hertz Stage, may be the best thing I’ve seen on stage in Atlanta in years. If you have any interest in excellent writing or backroom politics or superb performances, you must go. The play was written by Kenneth Lin, a former Kendeda winner and current staff writer for “House of Cards” (which this show could well be an episode of; it’s that good). Clayton Landey, Moses Villarama and Carrie Walrond Hood, under the expert direction of Eric Ting, bring to stunning life three characters caught in the vise of an imperfect past, a delicately balanced present and what could be a promising future. Landey is a political slickster whose new “client” is a fast-rising Asian-American (Villarama) with a shot at Congress. You really need to see this. Runs through November 17.
Don’t miss your chance to see Warrior Class, on the Hertz Stage now – www.alliancetheatre.org/warriorclass