Photo Flash: First Look at Georgia Ensemble Theatre's SWELL PARTY

Georgia Ensemble Theatre (GET), North Fulton's only professional theatre company, will continue its 2012-2013 20th anniversary season-long celebration with the world premiere, Swell Party by award-winning playwright Topher Payne, directed by Shannon Eubanks, running January 10-27, 2013, at the Theatre's home, the Roswell Cultural Arts Center, 950 Forrest Street, Roswell, Ga. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the actors onstage in the photos below!

Georgia Ensemble Theatre commissioned this new play by Topher Payne as part of its 20th Anniversary Season celebration. The plot focuses on the events surrounding the mysterious death of tobacco heir Smith Reynolds. The year is 1932. Smith has just returned to his family's North Carolina estate from an extended trip to New York. He brings with him a surprising souvenir: a wife. The new Mrs. Reynolds is a popular jazz singer and actress, a dozen years older than her husband. A wedding party is flat-out ruined when the groom turns up dead. As the guests gather to reconstruct, along with the County Solicitor, the evening's events and try to solve the mystery, it becomes clear that for Southerners, the truth isn't nearly as important as a good story.

Swell Party features a cast of wonderful Atlanta actors including Weston Manders as Smith Reynolds, Suehyla El-Attar as Broadway star Libby Holman Reynolds, Kate Donadio as the secretary/debutante Babe Vaught, Scott DePoy as the solicitor Erle McMichael, Jo Howarth as matriarch Kate Reynolds, Tony Larkin as the best friend Ab Walker, and Tess Malis Kincaid as the acting coach Blanche Yurka. Three of the cast of seven are making their GET debuts: El-Attar, Howarth and Manders. This production also marks the launch of GET's new understudy/mentor program with Kennesaw State University and Gainesville Theatre Alliance. Zach Bromberg, Caitlin Findlay and Audra Pagano are the first participants in this new exciting program.

Ticket prices for Swell Party range from $23 to $33 (Senior/Student discounts available for select performances). "Recession-Buster" perimeter tickets may also be purchased for $10 or $20 based on availability. 2012-2013 "Three-Play" Season Packages, and individual show tickets are available now online at www.get.org, or by calling the Box Office at 770-641-1260.

The Georgia Ensemble Theatre and Conservatory provides quality theatre productions and arts education to the north metro Atlanta area. The Company annually produces five mainstage productions, attended by more than 20,000 patrons, as well as three Theatre for Youth productions and year-round classes for all ages.

Photo Credit: S. Slusser

Tony Larkin and Kate Donadio

Suehyla El-Attar as Libby Holman Reynolds

Weston Manders and Jo Howarth