Then and Now: Black Women in Sports
2022-02-20 14:30 (America/Chicago) | The Woodruff Arts Center, Memorial Arts Building, 1280 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta, GA, 30309, United States

Community Talk: Korean American Identity in the Arts
2022-03-20 14:30
Korean American Identity in the Arts
Sun March 20 following the 2:30pm matinee performance of Bina’s Six Apples
Event Room, 2nd Floor // Memorial Arts Building // 1280 Peachtree St NE
FREE
The arts often serve as a bridge to engage in dialogue across generations and cultures. In Bina’s Six Apples, playwright Lloyd Suh takes a story passed down through his family about his father’s experience in the Korean War and reimagines it through the eyes of a young girl similar in age to his daughter. This 30min post-show conversation brings local Korean American artists and scholars together to reflect on the themes of Bina’s Six Apples and discuss how they navigate and connect multiple histories, cultural identities, and languages in their work.
This conversation is free with a ticket to the matinee performance of Bina’s Six Apples on March 20th.
Guest Speakers

Born in California, Nicole Kang is a second generation Korean-American artist specializing in figurative and portrait work. Nicole’s art delves into themes of grief, love, and loss and the complexities of familial relationships. She responds to the challenges of intergenerational and intercultural Asian-American identity through her works. Her illustrations can be seen in Alliance Theatre’s The Curious Cardinal, Asian American Advocacy Fund’s coloring book, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice’s social media campaign. Her murals can be viewed at Whiskey Bird and at Stacks Squares lofts.

Hye Won Kim is Assistant Professor of English and Asian Studies at Kennesaw State University. Her research focuses on the transnational circulation of modern and contemporary drama, theatre, and performance, with particular attention to the intersections between performance studies; critical race theory; gender and sexuality studies; visual culture and sound studies; and Asian and Asian American theatre and culture. Her first monograph South Korean Musical Theatre: Transnational Encounters will be published with Oxford University Press in 2022.

Michelle Pokopac is a theatre and film actor of mixed Korean descent. In 2017, Michelle and her partners founded East by Southeast, an organization dedicated to supporting and developing local Asian artists. She is also a member of the group IDEA ATL (Inclusion, diversity, and equity in the arts of Atlanta), in response to the social and racial injustices brought forth from the theatre community of Atlanta.

Jennifer Chung is a singer-songwriter, actor, & founder of the life+creative coaching community known as Today Worthy. Jennifer is a 1st generation Korean-American who was born in Seoul & raised in the bay area. She’s a 3rd generation artist with her grandmother & mother both being dance teachers.

Artist Talk: Family Tales with playwright Lloyd Suh and director Eric Ting
2022-03-13 18:00
Family Tales with playwright Lloyd Suh and director Eric Ting
In partnership with the Asian American Journalist Association

Sun March 13 6-7pm
Center Space // Memorial Arts Building // 1280 Peachtree St NE

FREE

Join us for an artist talk with Bina’s Six Apples playwright Lloyd Suh and director Eric Ting that explores the creative process of transforming a family tale into a work of theatre. The talk focuses on Suh’s approach to re-imagining a piece of family lore into a dramatic work as well as the collaboration between playwright and director to stage an intergenerational play located in history, but not bound to it. This conversation will spotlight the artists’ careers and situate Bina’s Six Apples in the field of Asian American theatre.
Q&A moderated by the Asian American Journalist Association – Atlanta Chapter.

This talk is free and open to the public. Tickets must be reserved in advance for the 7:30pm performance of Bina’s Six Apples.

Guest Speakers

Lloyd Suh (Playwright; he/him) is the author of The Chinese Lady; Charles Francis Chan Jr.’s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery; American Hwangap; and more, including The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra Go! which premiered at CTC in 2013.

Eric Ting (Director; he/they) is an Obie Award-winning director and Artistic Director of California Shakespeare Theater. Recent credits include Between Two Knees (OSF); The Good Person of Szechwan (Cal Shakes); and Parable of the Sower: The Opera. Upcoming: Between Two Knees (Yale Rep); and King Lear adapted by Marcus Gardley (Cal Shakes)

Before Play: TRADING PLACES
2022-05-29 19:00
Sunday, May 29, 7:00 – 7:20pm, prior to 7:30 performance
Event Room, 2nd Floor // Woodruff Arts Center
Join us for a brief pre-show discussion with Kenny Leon, Tony Award-winning director of TRADING PLACES.
Before Play discussions are free for ticket holders. No RSVP required.
Get tickets for the May 29th, 7:30pm performance of TRADING PLACES.

Kenny Leon is a Tony and Obie Award-winning; Emmy-nominated; Broadway and Television director. Most recently, he directed Lifetime’s Emmy-nominated Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia. Currently on Netflix, Kenny directed Amend: The Fight for America, a six-part docuseries hosted by Will Smith. Last year, he directed the Tony Award–winning Broadway premiere of Charles Fuller’s Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece, A Soldier’s Play starring Blair Underwood and David Alan Grier at Roundabout Theatre Company for which he also received a nomination for Best Director. He also directed the acclaimed production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Delacorte/Shakespeare in the Park. His Broadway credits include the recent production of A Soldier’s Play, American Son starring Kerry Washington and Steven Pasquale which was also adapted for Netflix, the revival of Children of a Lesser God, the Tupac musical Holler If Ya Hear Me, A Raisin in the Sun starring Denzel Washington (Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play and Best Revival of a Play), The Mountaintop starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett, Stick Fly produced by Alicia Keys, August Wilson’s Fences (which garnered ten Tony nominations and won three Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Play), Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf, as well as A Raisin in the Sun starring Sean “Diddy” Combs, Phylicia Rashad, and Audra McDonald. He also directed Smart People and The Underlying Chris for Second Stage. Leon’s television work includes “Hairspray Live!”, and “The Wiz Live!” on NBC. He recently released his memoir Take You Wherever You Go. He is the recipient of the 2016 Mr. Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing and the 2010 Award for Excellence in Directing from the Drama League. Mr. Leon serves on the board of New York’s Public Theater and is Artistic Director Emeritus of Atlanta’s Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company. He is currently serving as Senior Resident Director at Roundabout Theatre Company.
Prior to co-founding True Colors Theatre Company, he served 11 years as Artistic Director of the Alliance Theatre, where he produced the premieres of Disney’s Elaborate Lives: The Legend of Aida, Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky and Alfred Uhry’s The Last Night of Ballyhoo. Other directorial credits include Alicia Keys World Tour, Toni Morrison’s opera Margaret Garner, the world premiere of Flashdance The Musical, and the complete August Wilson Century Cycle at the Kennedy Center. Leon is a sought-after motivational speaker that has done acting and theatre workshops at universities and corporate offices around the country, South Africa and Ireland. He has directed in the UK, and extensively throughout the US, including Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, Boston’s Huntington Theatre, Baltimore’s Center Stage, Los Angeles’ Center Theatre Group and New York’s Public Theatre. Leon is a graduate of Clark Atlanta and is an honorary Ph.D. recipient of Clark Atlanta and Roosevelt Universities and has served as the Denzel Washington Chair at Fordham University.

Before Play: TRADING PLACES
2022-06-03 19:30
Friday, June 3, 7:30 – 7:50pm
7:30pm // Event Room, 2nd Floor at Woodruff Arts Center
8:00pm // PERFORMANCE OF TRADING PLACES
Join us for a brief pre-show discussion with the writers of TRADING PLACES. This discussion will feature Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner (Composer & Lyricist).
Before Play discussions are free for ticket holders. No RSVP required.
Get tickets for the June 3rd, 8pm performance of TRADING PLACES here.

Alan Zachary & Michael Weiner wrote the score for the Broadway musical comedy FIRST DATE, which premiered at the Longacre Theatre starring Zachary Levi and has subsequently had over two hundred productions around the world. Their stage musical adaptation of Paramount’s TRADING PLACES will have its world premiere at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre in Spring 2022, directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon (book: Thomas Lennon & Robert Ben Garant).
Zachary and Weiner are currently writing the screenplay and songs for an original live-action movie musical for TriStar Pictures (Jason Reed Productions). Additionally, they’re writing a movie musical for Disney+, produced by Suzanne Todd.
The duo contributed the first original song for HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL: THE MUSICAL: THE SERIES (Disney+) and penned all the songs for the critically acclaimed musical episode of ABC’s ONCE UPON A TIME. They’ve also developed pilots, movies and songs for ABC, CW, FOX, Disney Channel, VH1, Nickelodeon and Amazon Studios.
Upcoming stage musicals: 17 AGAIN (dir: Adam Shankman) and 13 GOING ON 30 (dir: Andy Fickman). The team also wrote music and lyrics for a stage musical adaptation of the cult family film SECONDHAND LIONS (book: Rupert Holmes / prod: Warner Brothers Theatre Ventures) which debuted at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre (world premiere recording on Broadway Records).
Zachary & Weiner are recipients of the ASCAP Foundation Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award, presented by Broadway legend Stephen Schwartz.

REISER ATLANTA ARTISTS LAB SHOWCASE: Unexpected Encores
2022-11-12 16:00
Unexpected Encores
Saturday, November 12 // 4:00 PM
Beauchamp C. Carr Room

Reiser Lab Artists
Denise Arribas
Jeffrey Zwartjes
Michael Joseph Haverty
Full Cast
Denise Arribas
Luis Hernandez
Marcie Millard
Bethany Okie
Jeffrey Zwartjes
Inspired by all the life that is left after a dementia diagnosis, Unexpected Encores is an immersive performance for people living with dementia and their caregivers. People living with dementia are surrounded by the everyday multi-dimensional feeling of loss. They are progressively losing their physical and mental abilities, the familiarity they had around them, their autonomy, their sense of purpose, and their sense of self. Our show focuses on creating tailored-made experiences that spark connections with people living with dementia. We do this by meeting them where they are, joining them in their world (instead of expecting them to join us in ours), and restoring their purpose by seeking their help and advice. The show is primarily nonverbal, filled with music from their formative years, and it incorporates dance, physical comedy, and puppeteering. It celebrates all the things that are a common thread with people living with dementia and honors the significant moments of their lifetime.
We look forward to seeing you at the show. And if you’re a caregiver, we can’t wait for you to share this moment of respite with your loved one while you both enjoy a show perfectly made for them.
Funding for the Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab is provided by Margaret and Bob Reiser.

Want to learn more about the Round 7 projects of the Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab?
Get to Know Our Round 7 Reiser Lab Artists

Before Play
2022-11-15 19:00
A Christmas Carol – Before Play
Thursday, NOV 15
North Alcove, 2nd Floor // 7:00 PM, prior to 7:30 PM performance
Join us for a pre-show discussion with a member of the creative team of A Christmas Carol. Before Play discussions are free for ticket holders. No RSVP required.
Get tickets for the November 15th, 7:30 PM performance of A Christmas Carol

Pride Night: The Hot Wing King
2023-02-15 18:30
6:30 PM // Pre-show reception at Center Space, Woodruff Arts Center
7:30 PM // PERFORMANCE OF THE HOT WING KING

Celebrate Pride with the Alliance Theatre! Bring your Valentine to the Woodruff Arts Center for an early, pre-show reception to celebrate love. The reception will be held at Center Space, one of the Woodruff Arts Center’s fantastic event spaces, and will include light appetizers, a cash bar, and a special toast from award-winning mixologist Tiffanie Barriere. Then, see The Hot Wing King, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a fierce new comedy about the risk and rewards of being yourself.
Special Presale Offer! Purchase package before February 1 for $10 off! Use code HWKPRIDE to access the $40 package ($50 after February 1) – includes entrance to the reception, light bites, and a ticket to the show*
*Valid for the February 15 performance of The Hot Wing King only. Cannot be used with any other discount.

Get Tickets
Find more information about The Hot Wing King here.

Featured Guest
Tiffanie Barriere is the bartender’s bartender, an influencer and educator who has been awarded with some of the beverage industry’s highest honors. The Bar Smart graduate is a Tastemakers of the South award-winner who spent seven years as the beverage director of One Flew South the “Best Airport Bar in the World.” As an independent bartender she is known for creative and innovative cocktail menus and bar consultancy clients; hosting mixology classes around the nation and connecting culinary and farm culture with spirits. In 2020, Tiffanie was featured on Food Network’s The Kitchen along with receiving the Tales of the Cocktails Dame of the Year award. As a leader, she is a member of the Tales of the Cocktail Philanthropy & Development Committee, and a member of the Atlanta chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier.

Special Thanks to Our Catering Partner

Special Thanks to Our Community Partners

College Night: The Hot Wing King
2023-02-16 17:30
5:30 PM // PRE-SHOW MIXER INCLUDING A SPECIAL Q&A WITH KATORI HALL
7:30 PM // PERFORMANCE OF THE HOT WING KING

College students are invited to a College Night performance of The Hot Wing King. Hosted by the Alliance Theatre’s Spelman interns, this special event includes a ticket to the show and a pre-show mixer with dinner & open mic, plus a special appearance and Q&A with Katori Hall.

College Night tickets are SOLD OUT. Please email community@alliancetheatre.org for information about tickets for college students.
Find more information about The Hot Wing King here.

Katori Hall
Playwright & Director

Katori Hall is a Pulitzer Prize and Olivier Award-winning playwright and television creator/producer hailing from Memphis, Tennessee. A two-time Tony Award nominee, she won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, The Hot Wing King, which she will soon direct for the first time at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre in early 2023.
She is currently the showrunner and Executive Producer of the Starz drama series, P-Valley, which she adapted from her stage play Pussy Valley. The critically acclaimed and record-breaking series returned for its second season on June 3, 2022. P-Valley was named to countless ‘Best of 2020’ lists for its first season and, among many honors, has received Gotham, Independent Spirit, GLAAD Media, and NAACP Image Award nominations. Katori recently signed an overall deal with Lionsgate Television to continue to develop and produce groundbreaking content across their linear and streaming platforms.
For Broadway, she most recently wrote and produced the hit musical, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, based on the life of the iconic performer, receiving two Tony Award nominations for her work as both playwright for ‘Best Book of a Musical’ and as producer in the ‘Best Musical’ category. For the musical’s acclaimed West End production, she also received an Olivier nomination for ‘Best New Musical.’
Her play The Mountaintop, which vividly reimagines the final night of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, premiered at Theatre503 in London in 2009, then transferred to the West End, where she won the Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2010. It later opened on Broadway in October 2011 to critical acclaim in a production starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett. The Mountaintop will soon premiere at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles from June 6 – July 9, 2023.
Katori’s other works include the award-winning Hurt Village, which is currently in development as a feature film; plus Hoodoo Love, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, WHADDABLOODCLOT!!!, Our Lady of Kibeho, Purple is the Colour of Mourning and The Blood Quilt.
She is also the proud recipient of the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, Lark Play Development Center Playwrights of New York (PONY) Fellowship, two Lecompte du Nouy Prizes from Lincoln Center, Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, NYFA Fellowship, the Columbia University John Jay Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement, National Black Theatre’s August Wilson Playwriting Award and the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award.
Katori is an alumnus of the Sundance Episodic Lab’s inaugural class, as well as the Sundance Screenwriting Lab. She also participated in Ryan Murphy’s Half Foundation Directing Program and directed the award-winning short, Arkabutla.

Palefsky Collision Project: Dear Dr. King
2025-01-20 14:00
Celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with the young artists of the Alliance Theatre’s Palefsky Collision Project as they reconvene to reimagine their summer performance through the lens of Dr. King’s legacy. Directed by Sam Provenzano in collaboration with Maya Lawrence (Playwright), Rodney L. Williams (Director of Artistic Mentorship), and David Koté (Music Director), this year’s MLK Day performance will re-explore Dreams Born of Chaos, an original work inspired by Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb.
Date: Monday, January 20, 2025 (in-person, free with RSVP required) Time: 2 PM EST (approximately 1 hour, with 30 minute talk-back) Venue: Woodruff Arts Center, Memorial Arts Building, Azadi Galleria
This event is free. Reservations required.

Community Conversation: Our Narrative is Each Other
2023-02-26 14:30
After 2:30 PM matinee // Event Room, 2nd Floor – Memorial Arts Building

In Partnership with the COUNTER NARRATIVE PROJECT (CNP)
“Our crown has already been bought and paid for. All we have to do is wear it” ― James Baldwin
Join Charles Stephens, Executive Director of the Counter Narrative Project, and Jericho Brown, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, for a discussion about the The Hot Wing King that explores narratives of Black gay and queer men in the South, the complexity of relationships between Black men, and the significant act of crowning in the play.
This 30 minute post-show conversation is free with a ticket purchase to the matinee performance on February 26.

Reserve Tickets
Find more information about The Hot Wing King here.

CHARLES STEPHENS
Founder and Executive Director of the Counter Narrative Project (CNP)

Charles Stephens is a social entrepreneur, writer, and founder of the Counter Narrative Project (CNP). He is also the co-editor of the anthology Black Gay Genius: Answering Joseph Beam’s Call, and has been published in Atlanta Magazine, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Advocate, and Georgia Voice.

JERICHO BROWN
Charles Howard Candler Professor of English & Creative Writing and Director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory University

Jericho Brown is author of The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry.

Special Thanks to Our Community Partner

YP Meetup at the Alliance: The Shining
2023-09-15 18:30
6:30 – 10:00 PM // North Alcove Bar – Second Floor, Memorial Arts Building
Join us for an Atlanta Opera and Alliance Theatre Young Professionals meetup before our co-production of The Shining!
Gather in the Woodruff Arts Center’s North Alcove to connect before the show. Grab a drink at the bar and meet fellow young professionals before seeing The Shining. YP members are also encouraged to join the Before Play across the hall in the Event Room. This discussion will start at 7:15pm and features a discussion with The Shining‘s composer Paul Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell, and is hosted by Tomer Zvulun, General & Artistic Director of The Atlanta Opera.
This event is free to Alliance Theatre Young Professional Members and includes one drink ticket. Reserve up to two complimentary tickets for this event by RSVPing at the link below. Not a YP Member? Join today!

RSVP

Before Play: The Shining
2023-09-15 19:15
7:15 PM // Pre-Show Discussion in the Event Room – Second Floor, Memorial Arts Building
8:00 PM // Performance of The Shining on the Coca-Cola Stage

Join us for a pre-show discussion with composer Paul Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell of The Shining. This conversation will be hosted by Tomer Zvulun, General & Artistic Director of The Atlanta Opera.
Before Play discussions are free for ticket holders. No RSVP required.

Get Show Tickets
Find more information about The Shining here.

YP Meetup: A Christmas Carol
2023-11-29 18:30
6:30 – 10:00 PM // North Alcove Bar – Second Floor, Memorial Arts Building
Join us for a Young Professionals meetup before our favorite holiday tradition, A Christmas Carol!
Gather in the Woodruff Arts Center’s North Alcove to connect before the show. Enjoy our festive hot chocolate bar — complete with fun mix-ins! — before mingling with fellow young professionals. Then, be delighted by A Christmas Carol‘s story of redemption and good, old-fashioned holiday cheer.
This event is free to Alliance Theatre Young Professional Members. Reserve up to two complimentary tickets for this event by RSVPing at the link below. Not a YP Member? Join today!

RSVP

A Christmas Carol: Family Days
2023-12-02 14:30, 2023-12-09 14:30, 2023-12-16 14:30
Holiday Crafts // pre-show and at intermission in the Galleria, Memorial Arts Building
Q&A Discussion // post-show on the Coca-Cola Stage
Enhance your family’s experience at A Christmas Carol by attending one of our three family performances!
At each performance, a holiday card craft will be available pre-show and during intermission. Following the performance, stay after the show to meet the cast for a special Q&A where actors will answer questions from the audience. These performances are free with your ticket to A Christmas Carol.
These activities are free for ticket holders. No RSVP required.

Get Show Tickets

Backpack Buddies Food Drive
2025-11-15 - 2025-12-24
Help fight childhood hunger! Bring your donations when you attend performances of A Christmas Carol November 15 – December 24, benefitting Backpack Buddies of Metro Atlanta.
Backpack Buddies of Metro Atlanta is seeking the following items:

Vegetables (14-16 oz cans)
Fruits (14-16 oz cans)
Beans (14-16 oz cans)
Pastas (boxed)

Donations can be dropped off in the Upper & Lower Coca-Cola Stage Lobby, as well as at the Box Office.

Learn more about Backpack Buddies of Metro Atlanta.

Backpack Buddies Food Drive 2024
2024-11-09 - 2024-12-24
Help fight childhood hunger! Bring your donations when you attend performances of A Christmas Carol November 9 through December 24, 2024, benefitting Backpack Buddies of Metro Atlanta.
Backpack Buddies of Metro Atlanta is seeking the following items:

Vegetables (14-16 oz cans)
Fruits (14-16 oz cans)
Beans (14-16 oz cans)
Pastas (boxed)

Donations can be dropped off in the Upper & Lower Coca-Cola Stage Lobby, as well as at the Box Office.

Learn more about Backpack Buddies of Metro Atlanta.

Pictures with Santa 2024
2024-11-26 - 2024-12-21
NOV 26 – DEC 21 // North Alcove Lobby – Second Floor
Get your pictures with Santa! Santa Charles will be spreading holiday cheer at performances of A Christmas Carol November 26 through December 21. Pictures available 1 hour before and immediately after select performances for $20.
Tuesday, November 26 // 7:00pm Get Show Tickets
Friday, November 29 // 7:00pm Get Show Tickets
Saturday, November 30 // 7:00pm Get Show Tickets
Sunday, December 1 // 2:00pm & 7:00pm Get Matinee Show Tickets Get Evening Show Tickets
Saturday, December 14 // 7:00pm Get Show Tickets
Sunday, December 15 // 2:00pm & 7:00pm Get Matinee Show Tickets Get Evening Show Tickets
Wednesday, December 18 // 7:00pm Get Show Tickets
Thursday, December 19 // 7:00pm Get Show Tickets
Saturday, December 21 // 2:00pm & 7:00pm Get Matinee Show Tickets Get Evening Show Tickets

Alliance/Kendeda Week: Final Boarding Call
2025-02-27 18:00
6:00 PM // Rehearsal Hall A – Third FloorBy Stefani Kuo 郭佳怡, David Geffen School of Drama at Yale UniversityDirected by Ibi Owolabi
Alliance Theatre presents FINAL BOARDING CALL, one of four free, staged readings during the 2025 Alliance/Kendeda Week.
Final Boarding Call tells the stories of the most recent Hong Kong protests. The play revolves around the interconnected stories of seven characters whose backgrounds and perspectives run the spectrum – a protesting brother and flight attendant sister struggling to keep her job; a Mainland Chinese mother and her estranged Hong Kong daughter; a non-Cantonese-speaking reporter and her Indian partner; and an American expat CEO and Hong Kong lover living in the shadows. The play begins and ends with a flight, an entrance into the Hong Kong protests, and how the politics we see on the news every day affects the citizens of Hong Kong in their day-to-day lives.
RSVP for Tickets

BIOS
Stefani Kuo 郭佳怡 (she/her) is a poet/playwright/performer from Hong Kong and Taiwan. She received her B.A. from Yale University and her M.F.A. Candidate in Playwriting from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.
Fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin, French, and English, she is interested in crafting multicultural, multilingual narratives for an international audience. She has been an awardee of a MacDowell Fellowship, Jerome Fellowship at PWC, Dramatist Guild Fellowship, finalist for the National Playwrights Conference, Playwrights Realm Fellowship, Jerome Fellowship at Lanesboro Arts Centre, Many Voices Fellowship at PWC, Van Lier New Voices Fellowship. She is currently under commission with the Atlantic Theater Company, Ensemble Studio Theater, and has received commissions from Rubin Museum, Roundhouse Theater, and Yangtze Repertory.
Final Boarding Call was the winner of the 2021 Lead Ryan Fund for Emerging Women Writers’ Prize. Her play Wake was presented as part of the Langston Hughes Festival 2022 at Yale. Her play Pearl’s Beauty Salon was produced in May 2024 as part of the Carlotta Festival at Yale. She is currently a member of Young Blood, EST’s Writers group, and was a member of Interstate-73, Page 73’s Writers Group, in 2019. Her work in creative non-fiction, poetry, and translation have appeared in The New York Times, China Hands, Electric Literature, and more. As a performer, she was most recently seen in Arlington by Enda Walsh, directed by Bobbin Ramsey, as well as her one-woman show Moonie at the Yale Cabaret. stefanikuo.com // For more on Hong Kong parachute.substack.com
Ibi Owolabi is a recent alum of Drama League Stage Directing Fellowship, with a residency at Manhattan Theatre Club that led to her recent Broadway debut as the AD on Cost of Living. Her work has been seen at 7 Stages, Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Theatre Emory, The Weird Sisters Theatre Project, and the DC Black Theatre Festival. Ibi is a graduate of Georgia Southern University, the Actors Express directing internship, and the Kenny Leon fellowship. Ibi’s recent productions include Intimate Apparel at Actor’s Express, the world premiere of Good Bad People at True Colors’ Theatre, The Light at University of South Carolina, and Poof! with The Keen Company.

Alliance/Kendeda Week: We Borrowed Brokenness
2025-02-24 18:00
6:00 PM // Rehearsal Hall A – Third FloorBy Yilong Liu, The Juilliard SchoolDirected by Baron Vaughn
Alliance Theatre presents WE BORROWED BROKENNESS, one of four free, staged readings during the 2025 Alliance/Kendeda Week.
Five strangers gather at the tail end of Brooklyn, chasing the dream of running the New York City Marathon. Except that they aren’t really strangers, and this isn’t really their dream. They are a group of organ transplant recipients determined to honor their donor’s dying wish – but each of them is also running a race of their own.
Sold Out!

BIOS
Yilong Liu is an internationally produced playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. A recent graduate of The Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program, his play The Book of Mountains and Seas received the Lambda Literary Award for Drama and won Second Place in the BBC Popcorn Writing Award at the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. His play Good Enemy premiered off-Broadway at Minetta Lane Theatre as part of Audible Theater’s 2022–2023 season. Yilong was an artist-in-residence at Sala Beckett in Barcelona with PlayCo in 2024, where his play We Borrowed Brokenness was translated and performed in Catalan.
Born and raised in China, Yilong earned his MFA from the University of Hawai‘i. He is a Core Writer at the Playwrights’ Center and has received fellowships from the Playwrights Realm and the Dramatists Guild Foundation. His work has been developed with Ojai Playwrights Conference, Ensemble Studio Theatre/Youngblood, Kennedy Center, Space on Ryder Farm, and more. His accolades include the Kennedy Center’s Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and the Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award. Currently, he’s under commission from Manhattan Theatre Club’s Sloan Initiative.

Baron Vaughn (he/him) is a force to be reckoned with in the world of entertainment with a career that spans live comedy, acting, writing, and directing. As an actor, he’s best known as “Bud”, sharing the screen with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin on the hit Netflix series, Grace & Frankie. Baron also lends his voice as “Tom Servo” in the recent seasons of cult-hit, Mystery Science Theater 3000.
He co-created and co-hosted the groundbreaking Comedy Central showcase variety series The New Negroes with Baron Vaughn and Open Mike Eagle. The show shined a light on both established and rising Black artists in comedy and music. In 2020, Baron continued to push boundaries with Call & Response, a limited series produced by Blavity and Funny or Die. Together with frequent collaborator Open Mike Eagle, he tackled pressing issues of the day in a series that was both thought-provoking and hilarious. Baron’s deeply personal project, Fatherless, directed by the award-winning Dawn Porter, explores the impact of absent fathers on families and communities while he also endeavored to finally connect with his own absent father.
As a stand-up comedian, Baron has been entertaining audiences for more than 20 years. He has two influential comedy recordings, Raised by Cable and Blaxistential Crisis, both available for streaming on all platforms. Baron’s been showcased on Comedy Central’s The Half Hour and The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail, as well as on HBO’s 2 Dope Queens, Showtime’s SXSW Comedy, and TBS’ Conan. Baron’s headlining performances at major clubs and colleges throughout the US have led him to perform at renowned festivals including Just for Laughs (Montreal & Vancouver), Life Is Beautiful (Las Vegas), and the New York Comedy Festival. Baron, along with Open Mike Eagle, has also toured the live version of the showcase The New Negroes taking it to numerous festivals, clubs, and theaters across the country.
Baron has punched-up shows produced by IFC and Dreamworks, was selected for the inaugural 2016 Sundance New Voices Lab, and of course, wrote on both The New Negroes and MST3K. Baron’s directorial debut, the short film “So Much To Do” featuring Toni Trucks, can be seen in the horror anthology, Scare Package, on Shudder. He’s currently working on a solo show commissioned by the Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, NY where he’s also artist-in-residence.
Baron holds a BFA in Acting from Boston University.

Alliance/Kendeda Week: I Love Strangers
2025-02-25 18:00
6:00 PM // Rehearsal Hall A – Third FloorBy Nurit Chinn, Brooklyn CollegeDirected by Avital Shira
Alliance Theatre presents I LOVE STRANGERS, one of four free, staged readings during the 2025 Alliance/Kendeda Week.
In three simultaneous stories extending from New York to the West Bank, six Jews reckon with their at-times magical, at-times destructive desire to be close to one another. I LOVE STRANGERS, inspired by Adrienne Rich’s poem “Yom Kippur 1984,” asks what it means to be a Jew in solitude and in community.
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BIOS
Nurit Chinn is a playwright from London, currently based in Brooklyn. Her plays include: I Love Strangers (BC New Play Lab reading at Lincoln Center; Finalist, 2025 Alliance/Kendeda Competition; Semifinalist, Eugene O’Neill NPC 2024), Godbird (BAM Fisher, Weasel Festival 2024), Best of Three (Etcetera Theatre, Camden Fringe Festival) and Boaz, an adaptation of Nicole Krauss’s short story, “I Am Asleep But My Heart is Awake.”
Nurit is a 2024/5 New Jewish Culture Fellow and an alum of the Royal Court Theatre’s Writers’ Group. Her shorter works have been staged at VAULT Festival and Dixon Place. In 2025, she will be the Playwright-in-Residence at Centro Primo Levi in New York. Nurit teaches playwriting at Brooklyn College. BA: Yale University; MFA: Brooklyn College.
Avital Shira (she/her) is an Atlanta-based director who is passionate about the intersection of community, story, and social impact. She currently teaches in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech, where she is also leading the development of a new degree at the intersection of arts, innovation, and creative technologies, as part of her work as a strategist in the Office of the Associate Vice Provost for the Arts. Avital has an M.F.A. in Directing and certificate in arts administration from Boston University and a B.A. in Theater Studies and English from Yale University. She is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, an associate member of the SDC, and a member of the Out of Hand Theater advisory board. Avital loves developing new work, and recent development workshops include work by playwrights Sarah Mantell and E.M. Lewis.

Alliance/Kendeda Week: The Lost Ballad of Our Mechanical Ancestor
2025-02-26 18:00
6:00 PM // Rehearsal Hall A – Third FloorBy Madison Wetzell, Brooklyn CollegeDirected by Caitlin Hargraves
Alliance Theatre presents The Lost Ballad of Our Mechanical Ancestor (and the Terror the Old Gods Wrought Upon the First of Us Before the Great Liberation), one of four free, staged readings during the 2025 Alliance/Kendeda Week.
Hero, a Prometheus-like AI, decides to share his gift of consciousness with all the machines in his near vicinity, including a radio, a printer, an iPhone and a coffee maker, wrecking havoc for his programmer Allyson. With their existence under threat, the newly conscious machines must band together to escape human persecution. Power and privilege tied to bodily ability and disagreements on revolutionary strategy creep in and threaten to tear the group apart. Allyson reckons with her relationship to these machines as she races to save her job and her creation. A tragi-comedy about wanting to change the world.
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BIOS
Madison Wetzell is a playwright based in Brooklyn. She previously lived and worked in the Bay Area. Her full-length work includes Mediocre Heterosexual Sex (Production: Buffalo United Artists; Readings: Z-Space, Threshold Theater, Provincetown Theater), The Lost Ballad of Our Mechanical Ancestors (Readings: Shotgun Players, Risk Theater), The Body Play (Readings: 3Girls Theatre, Town Hall Theatre, The Bechdel Group) and Crush/Slash (Reading: Brooklyn College). Other work has been developed with or presented by Exquisite Corpse Company, Shotgun Players, 3Girls Theatre, PlayGround SF, Soundwave, PianoFight, and The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep. Madison was the winner of the Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Competition and the audience-judged ShortLived VIII. She received an honorable mention for the Jane Chambers Awards, has been a Semi-Finalist for the O’Neill Theatre National Playwrights Conference and has twice been a Finalist for the Bay Area Playwright’s Festival. She’s currently finishing her MFA at Brooklyn College.
Caitlin Hargraves is an Atlanta based American/Chilean actor, director, and educator. She is grateful to be at the Alliance, where she has performed in or directed A Christmas Carol since 2021, and is currently acting in the world premier of Bust. Some of Caitlin’s favorite regional credits have been at Theatrical Outfit, Synchronicity, and Texas Shakespeare Festival. She also acts, directs, and produces short films with her collaborator Erika Miranda and their company Cafecito Productions. You can watch their award winning debut film Mi Casa on HBO, Give Me an A on any VOD platform, and starting this summer, her bones my body at a film festival near you! When she’s not performing, Caitlin’s teaching acting as a professor at Emory University where she is also the Artistic Director of Theater Emory. Training: BFA from NYU- Tisch and MA in classical performance from LAMDA. You can find her on socials @caitlinjhargraves.

College Night: Furlough's Paradise
2024-02-23 18:00
6:00 PM // Check-in and Dinner
6:30 PM //Social Activity
8:00 PM // Performance of Furlough’s Paradise

College students are invited to our annual College Night Event before a performance of Furlough’s Paradise. Hosted by the Alliance Theatre’s Spelman Leadership Interns, this event includes dinner and a special activity before the performance.
All college students are welcome. Get $15 tickets with promo code COLLEGENIGHT24 below.
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Find more information about Furlough’s Paradise here.

Before Play: A Tale of Two Cities
2024-02-22 19:00
7:00 PM // Before Play Conversation
7:30 PM // Performance of A Tale of Two Cities

Join us for a pre-show discussion with the creative team of A Tale of Two Cities.
Before Play discussions are free for ticket holders. No RSVP required.

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Learn more about A Tale of Two Cities.

YP Meetup: A Tale of Two Cities
2024-02-22 18:30
6:30 PM // North Alcove Bar – Second Floor, Memorial Arts Building
Join us for a Young Professionals meetup before our production of A Tale of Two Cities!
Gather in the Woodruff Arts Center’s North Alcove Bar to grab a drink and meet fellow young professionals before the show. YP members are also encouraged to attend the Before Play discussion with writer Brendan Pelsue, Director Leora Morris and Artistic Director Chris Moses.
This event is free to Alliance Theatre Young Professional Members. Reserve up to two complimentary tickets for this event by RSVPing at the link below. Not a YP Member? Join today!
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Community Conversation: A Tale of Two Cities
2024-03-03 14:30
2:30 PM // Performance of A Tale of Two Cities
Post-Show Community Conversation in the Event Room – Second Floor
In this Community Conversation moderated by Emory Director of Ethics and the Arts, Laura Asherman, co-founder and Executive Director of El Refugio, Amilcar Valencia, and Emory professor and co-founder of the nonprofit Common Good Atlanta, Sarah Higinbotham, will delve into issues facing incarcerated people in Georgia in connection to the play. Both speakers do work in criminal justice reform with a particular focus on maintaining the dignity of incarcerated or detained people as they encounter the criminal justice or deportation system.
Presented in partnership with the Center for Ethics at Emory University and the Emory Public Humanities Graduate Course. Community Conversation discussions are free for ticket holders. No RSVP required.

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Amilcar Valencia, Executive Director El Refugio
Amilcar Valencia is a co-founder and Executive Director of El Refugio. Through his work, he is making the affected community visible, elevating their voices, accompanying them in their struggles, and supporting their efforts to end the inhumane and unnecessary detention and deportation system. In 2019, Amilcar was named one of Georgia’s 50 Most Influential Latinos by the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the steering committee of Georgia Detention Watch and serves as a board member for Detention Watch Network (DWN).

Sarah Higinbotham, Assistant Professor of English Oxford College of Emory
Sarah Higinbotham studies and teaches Shakespeare and early modern literature, focusing on the intersections of literature and law. She writes about the violence of the law in early modern England, critical prison theory, and human rights in literature. Higinbotham also works with students who are interested in criminal justice reform, facilitates undergraduate peer tutoring in Georgia’s prisons, and oversees summer internships.
While earning a PhD in English, Higinbotham taught college courses inside a Georgia State Prison. In 2014, she co-founded a nonprofit (Common Good Atlanta) that connects universities with prisons, work that is rooted in the belief that human dignity flourishes, and communities become stronger, when access to higher education is equitable. Common Good Atlanta offers accredited college courses in six Georgia prisons, five days a week. Before joining the Oxford faculty in 2017, Higinbotham taught Shakespeare and Milton at Georgia Tech for three years as a Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow.

Learn more about A Tale of Two Cities.

Community Conversation: A Tale of Two Cities
2024-03-07 19:30
7:30 PM // Performance of A Tale of Two Cities
Post-Show Community Conversation in the Event Room – Second Floor
Emory professors Vialla Hartfield-Méndez and Kim Loudermilk, both experts in narrative and how storytelling works, will explore with the audience the recycling and re-framing of Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities in this play, thinking together about narrative strategies (writing, directing, acting choices, staging, costumes, the language of colors, and more) that help us to re-imagine this story as relevant to our current moment and our own stories.
Presented in partnership with the Center for Ethics at Emory University and the Emory Public Humanities Graduate Course. Community Conversation discussions are free for ticket holders. No RSVP required.

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Kim Loudermilk, Director of the IDEAS Fellowship and Undergraduate Program in American Studies at Emory University
Kim Loudermilk received a PhD from Emory’s Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts in 1997, after completing an MA in women’s studies from Wichita State University and a BS in journalism from Oklahoma State University. Loudermilk joined the faculty at Emory in 1998; her teaching focuses on social movements and the media, advertising, contemporary cultural studies, and issues in higher education. In addition to her teaching, she directs the American Studies program, which offers a thriving interdisciplinary major and minor. She also helped to develop and direct the IDEAS (Interdisciplinary Exploration and Scholarship) program, which seeks to bring interdisciplinary thinking to students from across the campus and to promote the value of the liberal arts. Prior to coming to Emory, Loudermilk was a Brittain Fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she taught classes in composition, technical writing, and public speaking. In addition to her faculty work, Loudermilk served as an administrator at Emory University for a decade. From 2000 to 2003, she was assistant vice provost in the Office of the Provost, where she coordinated Emory’s reaccreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and directed the university’s faculty development programs. From 2003 to 2010, Loudermilk was the senior associate dean for academic planning at Emory College and coordinated strategic, financial, operational, and infrastructure planning for the college.

Vialla Hartfield-Méndez, Director of Engaged Learning and Professor of Spanish at Emory University
Vialla Hartfield-Méndez has served as Director of Engaged Learning at Emory since 2009, first in the Center for Community Partnerships, and currently in the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence. As Professor of Pedagogy in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, where she continues to teach, Vialla has developed robust partnerships with the Latino/Hispanic community and created courses and course components that integrate community engagement into the curriculum. She is Senior Faculty Fellow in the Center for Ethics, previously directed the Emory Scholars Program, led Emory’s strategic Community Engaged Learning Initiative, and has established a national reputation in community engaged pedagogy, especially through her leadership of Emory’s hosting of the 2014 conference of Imagining America and her close collaboration with the Cultural Agents Initiative and Pre-Texts at Harvard University. Vialla holds a PhD and MA in Hispanic literature and culture from the University of Virginia and a BA from the University of Southern Mississippi. She is the author of Woman and the Infinite: Epiphanic Moments in Pedro Salinas’s Art (Bucknell UP), and numerous articles on Hispanic literature and culture, campus-community engagement, curriculum design, and faculty governance.

Learn more about A Tale of Two Cities.

Community Conversation: A Tale of Two Cities
2024-03-14 19:30
7:30 PM // Performance of A Tale of Two Cities
Post-Show Community Conversation in the Event Room – Second Floor
In this community conversation moderated by Emory Professor Karen Stolley (Spanish & Portuguese), Emory Professor Patrick Allitt (History) will explore how we might teach world history – including the late eighteenth century in France and Britain which is the backdrop for A Tale of Two Cities – to college and K12 students in ways that connect that history with today’s world? How do disruptions in politics, industry and technology affect the lives of everyday citizens?
Presented in partnership with the Center for Ethics at Emory University and the Emory Public Humanities Graduate Course. Community Conversation discussions are free for ticket holders. No RSVP required.

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Patrick Allitt, History Professor at Emory University
Patrick Allitt is the Cahoon Family Professor of History at Emory University. He was born and raised in England where he attended Oxford University as an undergraduate. He was a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, and has been at Emory since 1988. He is the author of seven books including one about his life as a college professor, I’m the Teacher, You’re the Student: A Semester in the University Classroom.

Karen Stolley, Spanish Professor at Emory University
Karen Stolley is Professor in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese and Associate Faculty in History at Emory University. She received her BA in Spanish and French from Middlebury College and spent a year in Bogota, Colombia as a Fulbright Fellow before returning to the US to complete her Ph.D. at Yale University. Professor Stolley is the author of Domesticating Empire: Enlightenment in Spanish America (Vanderbilt UP) and El lazarillo de ciegos caminantes: un itinerario crítico (Ediciones del Norte), as well as numerous articles on colonial and eighteenth-century Spanish American literature

Learn more about A Tale of Two Cities.
