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Leaders of Tomorrow! MARCH 1998 MBC Wolverine OBSERVER 13
ENTERTAINMENT
Alliance Theatre Company
Announces Spectacular 30th
Anniversary Season!
by Stephanie Lee
Atlanta - Alliance Theatre
Company Artistic Director Kenny
Leon announced today an incredible
line-up of plays and musicals for the
theatre’s 30th Anniversary Season.
The 10-play season features the
world premiere of a new musical by
Elton John and Tim Rice, the
premiere of Atlanta playwright Pearl
Cleage’s newest work, a gripping
American classic, and seven other
productions, filled with passion and
mystery. Leon’s phenomenal new
season, running from September
1998 to July 1999, will feature:
In the 800-seat Alliance Theatre:
Elton John & Tim Rice’s
ELABORATE LIVES: the legend
of Aida, Frank Galati’s adaptation of
John Steinbeck’s THE GRAPES OF
WRATH, Tom Stoppard’s
ARCADIA, Antonio Skarmeta’s
BURNING PATIENCE, John
Henry Redwood’s THE OLD
SETTLER, and Sandra Deer’s
adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A
CHRISTMAS CAROL.
In the 200-seat Alliance Studio
Theatre: Paula Vogel’s HOW I
LEARNED TO DRIVE, Steven
Dietz’ LONELY PLANET, Pearl
Cleage’s ERNESTO’S EYES, and
David Stevens’ THE SUM OF US.
“I am very proud of the plans for
our 30th anniversary,” Leon said.
“We have the opportunity to present
significant new plays to Atlanta
audiences, to continue our relation
ships with artists Pearl Cleage,
Sandra Deer, Peggy Shannon and
John Henry Redwood, and to produce
beautiful, passionate plays that bring
us all together in celebration of our
common humanity.”
The Alliance Theatre, by special
arrangement with Walt Disney
Theatrical Productions, will open its
30th Anniversary Season with Elton
John and Tim Rice’s ELABORATE
LIVES, the legend Alda. With
music by Elton John and lyrics by
Tim Rice, book by Linda Woolverton,
and directed by Robert Jess Roth,
this is a tale of love, betrayal and
redemption. The production marks
the first collaboration for the Alliance
Theatre Company with Walt Disney
Theatrical Productions.
“It’s an extraordinary pleasure
and an honor to be working with
legends like Elton John and Time
Rice at the Alliance Theatre,” says
director Robert Jess Roth. “Elton and
Tim have written 19 songs, and our
book writer Linda Woolverton has
developed Elaborate Lives from the
same legend that Verdi used to create
the world famous opera Aida. Three
young people — the slave girl Aida,
the princess Amneris, and the soldier
Radames — are brought to the
threshold of life-changing choices by
their love for one another. It’s a
classic love story that has definite
relevance today.”
The season moves into the
holidays with the highly-anticipated
ninth annual production of Charles
Dickens’ A CHRISTMAS CAROL,
adapted by Sandra Deer. The
culturally diverse classic has become
an Atlanta tradition, with its cast of
local favorites, hundreds of Victorian
costumes, a trio of unforgettable
spirits and the lovable Tiny Tim.
Directed by Kenny Leon, the gospel-
infused production exemplifies the
Alliance Theatre Company’s pursuit
of the joy and beauty of the human
spirit through Dickens’ universal
message of transformation.
Next on the Alliance mainstage is
the John Steinbeck classic THE
GRAPES OF WRATH. This story
of a displaced Oklahoma family
struggling to reach California depicts
the lives of ordinary people striving
to preserve their humanity in the
face of social and economic depress
ion. The Joad family’s epic journey
of survival typifies the American
spirit - it is a portrait of the bitter
conflict between the powerful and
the powerless, of one man’s fierce
reaction to injustice and of a
woman’s quiet stoical strength.
The play is adapted by Frank Galati
from Steinbeck’s 1939 novel. Galati’s
adaptation, which won the 1990
Tony Award for Best Play. Is the
first adaptation of The Grapes of
Wrath to be sanctioned by the
Steinbeck estate.
Opening in February is Tom
Stoppard’s brilliant ARCADIA,
which has been called both a
romantic mystery and a comedy of
ideas. It will be directed by Alliance
Threatre Associate Artistic Director
David H. Bell, whose sizzling Hot
Mikado set the pace for the Alliance’s
dynamic 97-98 season. Arcadia
unfolds in the drawing room of an
English country estate during two
different time periods: 1809 and the
present. Leaping back and forth in
time between the past and present,
Arcadia shows Stoppard at his best -
funny, intellectual and romantic. In
1809 we watch sexual escapades,
school lessons and garden
renovations occur, then almost two
centuries later, a couple of historians
try (and fail) to reconstruct those
events accurately.
Tom Stoppard is considered by
many to be the greatest living
English playwright. His works
include Rosencrantz and Guilden-
stern are Dead, Travesties, The Real
Inspector Hound, and The Real
Thing. Arcadia is the winner of the
New York Drama Critics Circle
Award for Best Play in 1995 and the
Olivier Award for Best Play in 1994
The season turns from witty to
sensual in BURNING PATIENCE,
the play version of II Postino (The
Postman), the highly acclaimed
Italian film. The play was written by
Antonio Skarmeta from his novel of
the same title, and translated by
Marion Peter Holt. It is the story of a
small fishing village in Chile where
the local postal carrier asks poet and
national hero, Pablo Neruda, to help
him win the love of a beautiful young
barmaid. The poetry of Nobel
laureate Neruda is an integral
feature of the story, as is the
radically shifting political climate of
modern Chilean history. The
mainstage production of Burning
Patience will be directed by Alliance
associate artist Peggy Shannon
(Picasso at the Lapin Agile and The
Sisters Rosensweig).
Concluding the mainstage season,
Kenny Leon will direct John Henry
Redwood’s comic romance THE OLD
SETTLER in the spring of 1999. Set
in Harlem during the 1940s, the
play tells of two middle-aged sisters
and the handsome young Southern
boarder who comes to live with them.
A May-December romance blossoms
in this sweet and heartwarming
production that reveals the rhythm
and spirit of the 1940s. Skillfully
laced with sweet sorrow, wry humor
and poetic flavor, Redwood’s play is
a delightful look at a woman’s last
flirtation with love. Atlanta
audiences will remember John
Henry Redwood from his appear
ance as Troy Maxson in the
Alliance’s production of August
Wilson’s FENCES.
The first offering on the intimate
Studio Theatre stage will be Paula
Vogel’s HOW I LEARNED TO
DRIVE, the story of the relationship
between a young woman and her
admiring uncle. Spanning several
decades, it is a coming-of-age story
told in a series of episodes that go
back and forth in time. The episodes
are marked by the “driving lessons”
she receives from her uncle, who
turns the occasions into sexual
advances. Despite the highly charged
subject, How I Learned to Drive is
often light-hearted, insightful and
profound, striking many different
emotioned chords. The play proves
Paula Vogel to be one of the decade’s
most fascinating playwrights.
Winter continues with Steven
Dietz LONELY PLANET as the
second offering in the Studio
Theatre. Director John Dillion (A
Question of Mercy) will return to the
Alliance to direct this compassionate
comedy which examines the complex
relationship between two characters
as they share each other’s dreams,
anger and fears. In the play we meet
Jody, the owner of a map store who is
afraid to go outside, and his friend
Carl, an unusual character who visits
Jody often, bringing empty chairs
(representing friends who have died)
with him. This symbolic parable
about the importance of lasting
friendship was selected as one of the
best Off-Broadway plays of 1995.
In 1999 playwright Pearl Cleage
teams up with Kenny Leon for the
world premiere of her new work
ERNESTO’S EYES in the Studio
Theatre. Once again, Cleage tells an
intriguing and powerful story in her
exploration of the African-American
cultural experience. In Ernesto’s
Eyes, Precious Maxwell returns
home to Atlanta’s West End to
confront her father with the start
ling discovery she has made during
a trip to Cuba. The play explores
questions of family, love responsibi
lity, and the developing relationships
between African-Americans and
Hispanic-Americans.
The Alliance Theatre has
presented the world premieres of
three highly successful Cleage plays:
Flyin’West, Blues For An Alabama
Sky, and Bourbon at the Border.
In addition to having these plays
produced at theatres across the
country and abroad, Cleage has
recently published the novel
What Looks Like Crazy on an
Ordinary Day.
The final play in the Studio
Theatre for the 1998-99 season is
THE SUM OF US, Australian
playwright David Stevens’ refreshing
comedy about a not-so-typical father
and son relationship. This is the
story of a widower who fully accepts
his 24-year-old gay son. Alternately
hilarious and heart-tugging, the two
share the best and worst trials in
life, and depend on one another for
comfort and company. The Sum of
Us was an Off-Broadway hit before
it was produced in Australia as a
film starring Jack Thompson and
Russell Crowe.
The 30th Anniversary Season will
also feature an exciting Spotlight
Series line-up of fun and educational
experiences that enhance the
audience’s enjoyment and under
standing of the plays. The season
will include offerings in the Alliance
Children’s Theatre and the Alliance
Theatre Acting Programs, a full slate
of holiday events and the theatre’s
annual gala.
From Elaborate Lives to The Sum
Of Us, the Alliance Theatre
Company’s 30th Anniversary Season
is bursting with excitement, passion
and mystery. With one phone call,
you can guarantee your seat to one of
the hottest seasons ever. New this
season, Alliance Theatre patrons can
subscribe to either the 5-play
Mainstage Series ($70 - $180) or the
4-play Studio Series ($68 - $89).
Mainstage subscribers can add the
entire Studio Series at a terrific
savings of 30 percent. To subscribe
today call 404-733-4600.
Note: The Alliance Theatre Company
1998-99 season is subject to change.
The Alliance Theatre Company, a non-profit
organization, is supported in part by the National
Endowment for the Arts, the Georgia Council for the
Arts, the Fulton County Commission with guidance
from the Fulton County Arts Council, the City of
Atlanta Bureau of Cultural Affairs, Office of the
Mayor, and by contributions from individuals,
corporation and foundations.
Books Worth
Reading
The Street- Ann Petry
Think and Grow Rich: A Black
Choice- Dennis Kimbro and
Napoleon Hill
What Makes the Great GREAT-
Dennis Kimbro
Osiris Rising- Ayi Kwei Armah
Yurugo- Marimba Ani
Introduction to Black Studies-
Maulana Karenga
White Women’s Christ and Black
Women’s Jesus- Jacquelyn Grant
Countering the Conspiracy to
Destroy Black Boys, Vol. 4-
Jawanza Kunjufu
Sula- Toni Morrison
Invisible Man- Ralph Ellison
Collected Poems- Langston Hughes
COMMUNICATION
IS THE SALVATION OF
HUMANITY