Amy Zipperer

Into the Woods is a solid and well-sung outing for City Springs Theatre Company to mark the opening of a newly planned season full of beloved musicals, including The Sound of Music and West Side Story.

D&D WITH DEEDEE:  THE ADVANCED DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS TUTORIAL, the Barbed Tales' audio play included in this year’s Fringe Audio, is a funny character-driven piece that takes a clever behind-the-scenes look at the nature of beginning podcast production.

DATA, the winner of this year’s Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition is available to stream on demand or to experience as a live virtual event through the Alliance Theatre Anywhere Series at Alliance Theatre this month.

Summer is looking pretty bright this year.  And we’re not even talking about the reemergence of the reliable Georgia summer sun.  We’re talking about the real patrons in the stadium seats. We’re talking about live summer concerts with our favorite sweaty koozies.  And we’re talking about the highly anticipated return of another fun summer staple:  theatre camp!

When we finally shake this pandemic off for good, we’re going to be left with an extensive new vocabulary that includes all-things-Zoom.  There’s Zoombombing.  We've got the popular Covideo party.  And there’s my favorite:  Zoom fatigue.  This month, Found Stages, one of Atlanta’s most innovative theatre companies, is tapping into our increasingly impressive knowledge of Zoom with a Zoom theatre production called The Shift.  BroadwayWorld caught up with director Nichole Palmietto to talk about the show.

Listen up, Atlanta!  Actor’s Express is undertaking an exciting new Covid-friendly podcast project. It’s a new serial drama podcast called Crossroads.  BroadwayWorld caught up with producer/director Amanda Washington to talk about the project.

This month the Alliance Theatre has risen to the challenge of welcoming back a key source of public entertainment: live and in-person theatre.

News flash: Wea??re in the middle of a pandemic. That means there are no benches and chairs to sit on in your local Barnes & Noble. Baseball patrons are made of cardboard. And the theaters are closed. This last one stings the most, but the best Atlanta theaters are adapting to fill the void left by the absence of live theater. Wea??ve got drive-in cabarets. Wea??ve got outdoor opera. And wea??ve got a variety of online stream-from-home offerings, including the new Our Stage Onscreen Digital Series at Aurora Theatre, a series that brings performing arts to homebound season supporters and new audiences while providing a safe workspace for Atlanta theatre artists. The inaugural offering, streaming now through October 4 for a hefty $30 rental fee, is Barbaraa??s Blue Kitchen, a fun - if slightly underbaked - musical with a book, music, and lyrics by Lori Fisher. The small-cast musical works hard to conjure up a slice of homespun Southern life through portraits of workers and customers in a small Southern diner. A brave Chloe Kay, the actor who plays all of the characters in the diner, works hard to deliver an engaging evening of for-the-screen theater, but this first outing is hindered by technical challenges and, regrettably, by the fact that producing theater specifically for the screen is a tricky tricky business.

On Friday evening, City Springs Theatre opened a dazzling, well-sung production of the 2012 Tony Award-winning stage farce A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, placing the theatre squarely among the best professional theatres in Atlanta.  The production, a pure technical delight, showcases gorgeous scenic design by Alexander Dodge and spot-on costuming by Linda Cho.  The most delightful thing, though, is the fantastic turn by Atlanta favorite Googie Uterhardt as a?? well a?? the whole D'Ysquith family.

Synchronicity Theatre was teeming with excitement this past Friday evening as Atlanta families gathered in pajamas to watch the opening of the imaginative, high-energy new Family Series production of J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved classic, The Hobbit, a joint venture with Havoc Movement Company. Though the imaginative steam punk costuming by Emmie Thompson is only partly successful, Joel Coady and Barrett Doyle's dynamic unit set, working in tandem with Maranda DeBusk's gorgeous lighting design, sets the perfect stage for the mostly effective ensemble of five actors, including Brooke Owens, who gives a lively and engaging portrayal of unlikely hero Bilbo Baggins.

There's something wonderful on the Coca-Cola stage at the Alliance Theatre this February.  It's the English-language premiere of the Korean musical Maybe Happy Ending, a fresh and quirky tuner by Will Aronson and Hue Park that made its celebrated world premiere in Seoul, South Korea in 2016 and went on to win six Korean musical awards as well as the 2017 Richard Rodgers Production Award.  The Alliance Theatre's English-language production, superior in every aspect, continues the celebration in grand style.  With sleek and effective set design by Dane Laffrey and wonderfully sensitive acting, the musical, which masquerades as a cute story about robots, is, in truth, a heartbreaking exploration of the fleeting nature of love. 

In a few short days, we'll usher in a new decade, and a new decade inevitably promises change.  Baby Yoda memes are going to get old.  The iPhone 11 Pro Max is going to be replaced by something newer and better.  And we are going to get a new president.  But there's one thing we can count on not to change with the new decade.  That's that this is a Jane Austen world.   We have the novels.  We have the film adaptations of the novels. We have the stage adaptations of the novels. We have the modern adaptations of the novels. We have the film adaptations of the modern adaptations of the novels.  And Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon's festive new Austen-inspired play, The Wickhams:  Christmas at Pemberley, now at Theatrical Outfit in an ably-acted new production, is a lovely addition to my favorite strain of Jane Austen offshoots a?" the what-happened-next story. 

On Friday evening, Atlanta Lyric Theatre, in a display of pure bravura, opened their 40th Anniversary Season with the regional premiere of the musical War Paint, a new tuner with a book by Doug Wright, music by Scott Frankel, and lyrics by Michael Korie that tells the story of the rise and fall of two of the cosmetics industry's most notable trailblazers, Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden.  The musical opened on Broadway in 2017 to lackluster reviews and played only 269 performances before shuttering, even with two of Broadway's biggest divas, Christine Ebersole and Patti Lupone, at the helm.   There's a reason for this.  War Paint has what I like to call Sleepless-in-Seattle Syndrome when I'm talking to a group of juiced-up creative writing students.  That's a story that, like the Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan film, has this problem:  the characters don't share enough time together in scenes to generate the type of tension needed to sustain interest over the course of the story.  The musical places too many limitations on itself by remaining true to the real-life story which includes the fact that Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden didn't actually know each other in real life and ends up painting a stage where the two principal characters are separated by an imaginary wall that can't ever be scaled, not even emotionally, and not even by the most talented actors.  But Atlanta Lyric, with their artistic director, Mary Nye Bennett, an absolute mega-talent in the role of Helena Rubenstein, and gorgeous scenic by Stephanie Polhemus, manage to offer up an excellent evening at the theater under the direction of a capable Susan G. Reid. 

Welcome to Sunpocalypse.  So far, this Atlanta summer is 100-in-the-shade.  Basically, we're all human-sized Marios running from the evil sun and hoping for a brief respite via some magical pipe that takes you to a cool underground cavern where there's lots of unprotected gold.  Luckily, our favorite Atlanta stages have offered up a lot of great summer theatre, so at least we have something cool to look forward to.   

My love of Singin' in the Rain is deeply rooted in my experience of the beloved 1952 film classic, and it's steeped in nostalgia. It's a love that sees me first in line at classic film festivals when Singin' in the Rain is on the marquee. It's a love that makes my heart flutter when I learn that a nearby theater is staging the 1983 musical. And it's a love that makes me willfully forget that the stage musical … well … isn't that good. It tries hard, but it just doesn't quite work.  The "doesn't quite work" is not particularly bound up in the fact that stage adaptations are noticeably absent the great dancing triumvirate - Kelly, O'Connor, and Reynolds - though that certainly doesn't help.  What's wrong is that it feels too cinematic and has an inexplicable absence of story energy and razzle-dazzle that made us fall in love with Hollywoodland on the screen. Atlanta Lyric Theatre's earnest new production can't overcome this problem.  No production can.  But with tremendously entertaining supporting actors J. Koby Parker in the role of Cosmo Brown and Beth Beyer in the role of Lina Lamont, a beautifully sung titular song complete with a gorgeous streetscape and very real rain, and dreamy period costumes by Amanda Edgerton West, Atlanta Lyric Theatre offers up another pleasant evening of theatre. 

The play, a fair and angry indictment of social injustice, asks a number of important questions, and the gorgeous cast, under the adept direction of Atlanta-favorite Tinashe Kajese Bolden and Keith Arthur Bolden, and with help from an incredibly able design team, brings the indictment to powerful life.

It's sunset on a Sunday evening as I walk up a dusty pathway heading for the Horseman's Meadow at Serenbe Playhouse where a new production of Shenandoah, a musical adapted from the 1965 Jimmy Stewart film of the same name, plays through April 14.  Brilliant orange and purple light blankets the open field to my left.  To my right, a Civil War campsite moves into view.  Canvas tents soak up the last of the sun, and shadows fall on the faces of soldiers as they rest.  Here a few soldiers play poker.  There a soldier holds a live chicken, dinner for the weary troops.  Still farther on, a few tend to the tired horses. The camp is a spectacle that almost trumps nature's best spectacle, the dazzling sunset of an early spring.  But even the grand spectacle of the campsite pales in comparison to the battle that unfolds only moments later on the empty meadow. Terrence J. Smith and Cast Photo by BreeAnne Clowdus Men, some atop real horses, come from nowhere, and we are drenched in the chaotic sound of rapid artillery fire and the light of explosions - the remnants of shots fired from rifles and the fuses of cannons.  We are spectators at some battle where many men will die and where few will be able to articulate what it has all been for.  That's the Serenbe way of opening a Civil War play.  It's the classic Clowdus go-big-or-go-home welcome, and this play needs all the  help it can get to rise above its challenges, a heavy-handed script troubled by weakly drawn characters and a lackluster score.  Though the challenges are significant, visionary director Brian Clowdus, along with his creative team and talented cast, including a tentative American Idol-winner Taylor Hicks in his first principal acting role and Broadway's vibrant Rachel Potter, prove that the challenges are not insurmountable as they turn out an effective and memorable staging.

There's enough excitement in Atlanta this month to fill a fleet of pumpkin-carriages as Alliance Theatre mounts the highly-anticipated regional premiere of Ever After, a musical adaptation of the popular 1998 film of the same name which made its premiere at Paper Mill Playhouse in 2015. Ever After, loosely based on the Cinderella fairy tale, tells the story of Danielle de Barbarac, the Cinderella-esque young daughter of a 16th-century landowner who's forced into slavery by her stepmother after the unexpected death of her father. When a chance encounter with a prince stirs up considerable excitement for the young servant girl, Danielle finds that she might have the strength to take on her stepmother…and the world. Broadway diva Sierra Boggess, most known for her acclaimed turns as Ariel in The Little Mermaid and Christine Daae in Phantom of the Opera, will take on the role of the vibrant Danielle. BroadwayWorld caught up with Boggess to talk about the show.

Thanks to the aggressive Aquaman marketing campaign, chances are good that your significant other has been immersed in images of hunky Jason Momoa over the past few weeks.  That means you better up your Valentine's game.  You've got a lot of romance novel wet-hair flips and the chiseled mega-chest abs to drown out, and Bird Box on Netflix and delivery pizza ain't gonna cut it.  Luckily, we've recognized the problem early, and we've compiled a list of upcoming Atlanta shows to help you to plan the perfect Valentine's Day theatre date.   Because a date night spent at the theatre is always upping your game.

There's a new immersive theatrical experience at the Wren's Nest Museum in Atlanta this month, and it's definitely going to ring your Christmas bell. From the mind of visionary Atlanta director Brian Clowdus comes The Christmas Carol Experience, an interactive holiday concoction that's two parts Christmas party and one part Dickensian storytelling. The storytelling component of the evening offers little more than a wave at Dickens' frumpy and heavy-handed holiday novella, A Christmas Carol. Instead, it relies on the audience to bring a bit of working knowledge of Ebenezer Scrooge, literary history's most famous mizer, while it, bolstered by an impressive cast of five actors, provides the perfect 19th-century atmospheric backdrop, courtesy of The Wren's Nest, one of Atlanta's oldest homes with ghost-story spookiness built right in, and an abundance of holiday cheer. Here's how it works: The audience, mourners at Jacob Marley's funeral with Christmas cocktails in hand, are free to travel about the open rooms of the museum. What happens next depends on which characters are in the room. If Ebenezer and his deliciously ghostly guide, Marley, are present, the rooms offer up newly reimagined versions of Ebenezer's encounters with the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. If Ebenezer and Marley are not present, the rooms offer up interactive holiday cheer - maybe a singalong or a fun game. Newsflash: If you don't end up singing a solo in a room full of strangers before you leave, you did it wrong. This unusual rendering of the holiday classic demands only five actors, and each one is up to the challenge of providing a believable, up-close-and-personal experience. Of particular note are the performances of the beautifully Bah Humbug-gy Daniel Burns in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge and an incredibly talented Jordan Patrick in the role of the doomed-for-eternity Jacob Marley. Their laudable non-verbal storytelling skills nicely supplement the thin script, leaving the audience with a rich and satisfying experience. Lilliangina Quinones, Julie Trammel Key, and Rosie Gyselinck, all playing women from Scrooge's life who take on the roles of Ebenezer's Christmas ghosts, are, in addition to carrying their equal parts of the forward movement of the story, all up to the demanding task of leading rooms full of people through carols and games while remaining firmly rooted in the 19th-century sensibilities of their characters. The production is, unarguably, a pure sensory delight. The Wren's Nest, with its creaky floorboards and weather-stained walls and ceiling, is the important sixth character in this cast, and it is impressive in its role. In addition to the authentic Victorian oppressiveness that comes with the house, thick fog and eerie lighting aptly service the needs of the story and underscore the beauty of Clowdus's carefully crafted stage pictures. Here's a helpful tip: Follow Scrooge and Marley into the first room if you can. The experience is disorienting by nature, and following the story from beginning to end will likely quell some of the initial feelings of bewilderment you might face. But if Marley slams the door in your face while you are trying to enter that first room, as he did mine, don't fret. The story, as it is meant to do, will culminate in a softer and more charitable Scrooge, and it will leave you feeling the joy of the holiday season no matter the order in which you experience it.