Theater notes: Pandemic shifts schedules; a boost for scripts; troupe anniversaries

While some Atlanta theater companies appear to be getting back to normal as they cue up their fall seasons, pandemic-related show postponements and cancellations from the 2021-22 season are still a factor for other troupes.

Take, for instance, Actor’s Express’ situation. The West Midtown company debuts the Dominique Morisseau drama Sunset Baby, which it had planned to stage this past April-May, on September 24 for a run through October 16. In essence, Actor’s Express will be opening the final show of its 2021-22 season just as companies such as the Alliance Theatre and Theatrical Outfit are launching their 2022-23 seasons.

Meanwhile, even with fall officially arriving later this month, Synchronicity Theatre only recently announced the first half of its 25th anniversary season, promising that an “Act 2” announcement will follow later this autumn; and Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company has yet to make public its 2022-23 lineup.

Nor has Horizon Theatre, which over the holiday weekend announced a late change for the final show of its delayed season that launched in January. Instead of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, Horizon will premiere Designing Women, the Play, an Atlanta-set update by the creator of the 1980s-1990s hit TV show, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason. The run is September 30-November 6.

So, given the schedule changes and delays that persist, it was not surprising when Actor’s Express announced last week that it had reworked its previously announced 35th season schedule. It was to have opened in early November with a world premiere of Oh, to be Pure Again. Instead, due to what the company termed “ongoing calendar and production challenges due to Covid-19,” the season will start in February 2023 with Urinetown.

“From the first shutdown to our recent shorter-term shutdown in January of this year, we have both reacted to and anticipated conditions that have complicated our busy production calendar,” Actor’s Express Artistic Director Freddie Ashley explained in the announcement. “Making this change now allows us to spend a few dedicated months positioning ourselves strategically and financially to kick off the season confident and refreshed.”

Here’s how the reworked Actor’s Express 2023 schedule rolls out:

• Urinetown, February 2-19. The Tony Award-winning musical comedy is about what happens in the not-so-distant-future when a 20-year drought has depleted the land of water, and citizens are forced to pay a corrupt megacorporation for the “privilege to pee.” This fires up a ragtag group of rebels. A co-production with Oglethorpe University Theatre.
• Oh, to be Pure Again, March 2-26. The world premiere of playwright Kira Rockwell’s examination of faith and rebellion at a fundamentalist church camp in Texas. An idealistic young counselor works to shepherd the campers in the girls’ cabin through a delicate phase of self-discovery, only to be confronted with challenges to her own faith.
• Prayer for the French Republic, April 20-May 14. Following five generations of a French Jewish family, Joshua Harmon’s (Bad Jews, Skintight) drama is a sweeping look at history, home and the effects of an ancient hatred. Atlanta premiere.
• Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, June 8-July 2. In Pulitzer-winner Stephen Adly Guirgis’ play, a frightened young inmate at Riker’s Island confronts complex issues of faith when he crosses paths with a charismatic serial killer, a sadistic guard and a jaded public defender.
• Hedwig and the Angry Inch, July 20-August 19. “Internationally ignored” rock singer Hedwig searches the world for stardom and love. This all-new production is Actor’s Express’ third incarnation of the cult hit musical.
• cullud wattah, September 21-October 15. Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s Afro-surrealist play, a hit at New York’s Public Theater, hits the stage with its story of a family of women facing conflicting choices amidst the Flint, Michigan, water crisis.

Working Title Playwrights honorees

Working Title Playwrights, which recently became Theatrical Outfit’s first company in residence, has awarded Ethel Woolson Lab prizes to four playwrights. The series provides nearly 30 hours of developmental workshops that culminate in rehearsed, staged readings for the public. Each playwright is partnered with a support team of artists designed for the needs of the playwrights and their plays.

The winning playwrights and their winning projects are Quinn Xavier Hernandez, Spicy White (being staged December 4); Quintin Humphrey, No Kissing (December 18); Lee Osorio, A Third Way (January 29, 2023); and Mary Lynn Owen, Salvage (March 2023). Read more on each play here.

Rialto opens with a poetic theatrical journey to Africa

A Rialto Center for the Arts season that features a rich array of music performances starts with a potent theatrical note in Traces: A Speech to African Nations at 7 p.m. on September 15.

Burkinabe actor and director Étienne Minoungou presents the one-man theatrical performance, delivered in French with English supertitles. Minoungou portrays a storyteller returning to his home continent of Africa, standing alone against the world, determined to address it.

His monologue was composed by Felwine Sarr, the Senegalese humanist, philosopher, writer, economist and musician.

“Traces is addressed to the youth of Africa, to the lifeblood of the continent who thinks, often as a form of defiance, that their East is still the West,” Sarr said. “I wanted to talk to youth with a text that wasn’t all raw reality. . . . Poetry shines a different light on reality. It takes us out of the present. There’s an archaic power to it which touches at the essence of things.”

Simon Winsé, a Burkina Faso native, provides Traces’ evocative music.

A post-show panel, presented in collaboration with Georgia State University’s Center for Studies on Africa and Its Diaspora, focuses on some of the speech’s themes, including African identity and the trauma of migration, and explores the cultural and intellectual dynamism of Africa and its diaspora.

Northside, southside troupes celebrate anniversaries

Two other metro troupes are hitting round-number anniversaries this season.

Sandy Springs’ Act 3 Productions focuses its 10th season on family themes and introduces a new artistic director, Zach Stutts, who has returned to Atlanta after working for theaters in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley since 2016. The season opens with Lost in Yonkers, September 23-October 9, and also includes A Christmas Story, December 2-18; Little Women, February 10-26, 2023; and August: Osage County, April 14-30, 2023.

“With this first season coming out of the pandemic, I wanted to explore and share stories that focus on various family dynamics — stories that allow us, as patrons, to be both entertained and inspired, but also with which we can relate,” said Stutts, who attended Starr’s Mill High School in Fayetteville and worked in its the musical theater program.

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Meanwhile, Southside Theatre Guild, which bills itself as metro Atlanta’s oldest continually operating, all-volunteer community theater, celebrates its 50th anniversary. The 2022-23 season opens September 15-25 with On Golden Pond. The Fairburn theater is presenting only plays that have been previously performed by the company, and charging prices from the initial run. So, tickets for On Golden Pond, originally produced in 1999, will be $10 for adults and $8 for ages 12 and under.

The schedule also includes The 1940s Radio Hour (December 8-18), Charlotte’s Web (February 23-March 5, 2023), The Odd Couple (April 27-May 7, 2023) and Into the Woods (July 20-30, 2023).