Offscript - Year-end review

2002-03 theater season rewards caution over risk



Displays of togetherness bookended Atlanta’s 2002-03 theatrical season. It unofficially began with last fall’s First Glance Atlanta festival, which saw more than 40 theaters and performing arts groups stage world or regional premieres. And the season drew to a close with the Alliance Theatre’s City Series, which presented shows from five smaller playhouses at the Woodruff Arts Center’s Hertz Stage this spring.

If you had to assess the past season with a single word, “unity” could be a candidate. Productions like Theatrical Outfit’s re-mount of PushPush’s The Glass Menagerie showed a creative community eager to work in concert.

Yet “risk” may be a more appropriate watchword. Several troupes staged more daring work than usual, such as Theatre Gael’s abrasive “skull” double feature of A Skull in Connemara and Rat in the Skull, or VisionQuest’s ambitious repertory of Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

Some sure things turned out to be riskier than expected, like Steve Murray’s Manna at Actor’s Express and Horizon Theatre’s The Spitfire Grill: The Musical. They looked good on paper, but drew small audiences.

Paradoxically, “caution” proves a fitting motto for two theaters that succeeded by scaling back their ambitions. Dad’s Garage loosened its commitment to develop new works and delivered its most satisfying season in years thanks to 43 Plays About 43 Presidents and Bat Boy: The Musical. Wier Harman’s third and final season at Actor’s Express proved to be his least challenging but most artistically impressive, especially the revivals of Gypsy and Trouble in Mind.

Atlantans saw Susan V. Booth’s first year of hand-picked selections at the Alliance, which featured big names like Ruby Dee for St. Lucy’s Eyes and Savion Glover in the touring show of Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk. Da Noise brought transcendent excitement to the Alliance stage, while the rest of the year saw a kind of cool, detached professionalism.

I’d go into a show like Stephen Sondheim’s Japanese history lesson Pacific Overtures and the Southern comedy Crimes of the Heart and wonder, “Why did the Alliance choose this?” I came out admiring Pacific’s design or Crimes’ actors, but repeating the question. Booth’s lineup featured everything but a sense of urgency.

Atlanta’s theater season overall matched the Alliance’s own by lacking the payoff expected from the wealth of talent and ideas available. The 2002-03 year once more affirmed the “potential” of Atlanta theater, but we’re overdue to see that potential realized.

Looking inward

Unity diminishes for the 2003-04 theater season at Theater Emory, which is scaling back its collaborations with the rest of Atlanta’s theaters. Artistic Director Vinnie Murphy says that for the upcoming year, the theater will no longer offer Atlanta theaters free access to its facilities for rehearsals or auditions, and neither will it initiate or participate in events like 2001’s Naomi Wallace Festival.

“There’s been too much going on, and we want to pull back for at least a year and just do work in-house with student groups and resident faculty,” says Murphy. Last summer, eight performing arts groups used Emory resources, some without asking permission first. “We collaborate so much that it’s gotten very hard for Theater Emory to get stuff done.”

Theater Emory’s decision makes operations more difficult for theaters with no permanent space. “It’s a big blow to us. We usually rehearse two or three shows at Emory each year, free of charge,” says Rachel May of Synchronicity Performance Group. Kimberly Jurgen of Atlanta Classical Theatre says her troupe will try to make up for the loss by implementing an “adopt-a-school” plan, in which the theater offers workshops and internships to students and teachers at an Atlanta school in exchange for rehearsal space outside of school hours.

Murphy wants to reduce Theater Emory’s commitment because its upcoming season includes three world premieres, which require more attention and preparation than established scripts. Elizabeth Wong’s Dating and Mating in Modern Times, a series of monologues for women, runs Sept. 20-Oct. 4. Emory student and playwright Lauren Gunderson meditates on the genius of Isaac Newton in Leap Feb. 12-21. And Emory professor John Ammerman imitates the style of silent movies in Life Goes On: A Silent Play in Black and White April 15-24.

Murphy’s decision hit close to home since Theater Emory extends resources to the theater troupe Out of Hand, whose founders include such recent Emory graduates as Murphy’s own daughter, Ariel de Man. It’s akin to King Lear casting out dutiful daughter Cordelia. Or maybe not. Still, several Atlanta theaters will have to assert their independence without Theater Emory as a cushion.

Opening Out of Town

The one-act play “Gladiators or Kamikazes” by Atlanta playwright Peter Hardy will have a staged reading July 27 and Aug. 3 at Los Angeles’ Attic Theater Ensemble.

curt.holman@creativeloafing.com


Off Script is a biweekly column on the Atlanta theater scene. ??