Found Stages and Hush Harbor Lab Present CASSIE'S BALLAD By Addae Moon

Found Stages, in partnership with Hush Harbor Lab, presents the world premiere production of Cassie's Ballad, written by Addae Moon and directed by Lydia Fort, at the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance (WAWA).

Cassie's Ballad is an immersive ritual and historical fable, that combines theater and nature to offer a source of community healing for all those affected by Atlanta's Missing and Murdered Children cases, a series of killings that targeted African American children, teens, and young adults during 1979 - 1981.

Cassie's Ballad follows the story of Brandon, a young Black teen living in Atlanta during the early 1980s. His friend Cassie has lost her voice after a child they know has gone missing. With the guidance of an Ancestor, Brandon leads the audience on a literal search for the missing child and a figurative search for Cassie's voice. From the "Graveyard of Innocence" to Cassie's Bottle Tree, the journey leads them to a sad but healing discovery.

Performances will run May 7 through May 22, 2022, on Thursday-Sunday evenings, plus matinee performances on Saturdays and Sundays.

This is not a typical theatrical production. The experience is a 45-minute walking journey that will take place outdoors. There will not be a stage or audience seating. The audience will travel with the characters to multiple locations along a wooded path within the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance (WAWA).

For a look at the project, please view this video of the November workshop held at WAWA: https://youtu.be/RGhTgwhKJzM.

Click here to get your tickets for Cassie's Ballad.

If you are interested in learning more about Cassie's Ballad and the Blue Bottle Series community conversations, please visit www.foundstages.org and www.hushharborlab.com, respectively. The Blue Bottle Series engages practitioners in their craft focusing on their artistic journey and the play development process. This special event specifically discusses the impact of the Atlanta Missing and Murdered Children on the community and ways rituals and care practices within combined artistic space can be incorporated for communal healing.

Hush Harbor Lab is a brave space for the development and production of new and innovative digital, live and multi-media performance work by Black Atlanta-based artists. Hush Harbor strives to be a space that promotes wellness, self-care and the sacred within the Black arts community with the recognition that caring for the full person (body, mind, spirit) encourages better art. Learn more at www.hushharborlab.com.

Found Stages is a professional, nonprofit theater whose mission is to build community through innovative storytelling. Co-founded and led by Executive Artistic Director Nichole Palmietto and Resident Playwright Neeley Gossett, Found Stages has been taking plays out of the theater and into real-world spaces where people live and work since 2014. In 2015-16, Found Stages was part of the second round of the prestigious and highly competitive Alliance Theatre Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab. In 2019, the company presented the groundbreaking Frankenstein's Funeral (named as one of the best plays of 2019 by ArtsATL) throughout the Gothic campus of St. John's Lutheran Church in Druid Hills. Learn more at foundstages.org.

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