Theater Lines: Smyrna firehouse turns theater, plans set for Cleage work, more

The Old Smyrna Firehouse will host a limited engagement of a solo show with a companion gallery exhibit by award-winning actor and photographer Becca McCoy. 

The Year of Extraordinary Travel will have two performances at the alternative performance space September 8 and September 9, sponsored by the Smyrna Arts Council. Directed by Vickie Daignault, the play integrates literature and photography into traditional solo performance.  

“Especially after the pandemic stopped us from congregating for collective listening, I wanted to explore the various ways we tell and hear our stories,” said McCoy in a press release. “And using the book as both source material and theatrical element allows for variety in how the audience is guided through the story.  It is a play about possibility, and books and the theater are spaces of possibility.”   

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Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., recently announced plans for the world premiere of Pearl Cleage’s Something Moving: A Meditation on Maynard, directed by Seema Sueko. Performances begin September 22 and continue through October 15. 

Cleage, who was Maynard Jackson’s speechwriter, said her experiences of the moment were life-changing, and she wanted to write about the former Atlanta mayor when commissioned for The Ford’s Theatre Legacy Commissions. The play received a developmental workshop and reading earlier this year.

“I wanted to look at that moment as a time when many different communities in Atlanta came together in a way they never had before to elect this man we all felt was absolutely the right person to lead us through this transition period,” Cleage said in a press release. “I wanted to ask myself and my audience: What makes a great leader? I wanted to explore what we as citizens owe those leaders once we identify them.”

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Stage Door Theatre was recently awarded a 2024 Bridge Grant by the Georgia Council for the Arts, part of the Georgia Department of Economic Development. This first-round grant funding for fiscal year 2024 includes a total of 269 grants across 47 counties in three funding categories. 

“We updated our mission, created impactful community engagement programs, maximized the full potential of our academy, diversified our revenue with new corporate partnerships and were intentional with our collaborations and programming to represent the entire community here in Dunwoody,” said Producing Arts Director Justin Ball in a press release.  

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This week, Synchronicity Theatre announced the four works that have been selected as

part of this season’s Stripped Bare Arts Incubator Project. Works include Coming Home to Roost, by Chris Lane on November 15; Day, by Emma Yarbrough on January 6, 2024; Soft As It Began, by John Clarence Stewart on February 21, 2024; and Mosaka’s Travel, by Thulani Vereen on April 17, 2024. Performances are free at Synchronicity Theatre.

“We are thrilled to uplift new projects led by John Stewart, Chris Lane, Emma Yarbrough and Thulani Vereen,” said Producing Artistic Director Rachel May in a statement. “This is an inspiring new cohort of creators, and we can’t wait to see the projects they bring to our stage.”