Culture Surfing

PEACH DROP: Steven Westdahl (from left), Amber Nash, Anthony Irons, Niki Lindgren, Amy Roeder and Randall Harr

The Alliance Theatre’s comedy revue The Second City: Peach Drop, Stop and Roll features three Atlanta actors and three out-of-towners. That’s up from two locals in last year’s Second City show at the Alliance’s Hertz Stage, The City Too Busy to Hate, Too Hard to Commute. At this rate, the Atlanta-themed show may have an all-Atlanta cast by 2012.

Like its predecessor, written by Ed Furman and T.J. Shanoff, Peach Drop combines Atlanta-centric sketches peppered with time-tested material from the famed Chicago-based improv comedy playhouse. Two Chicagoans, Seth Weitberg and director Matt Hovde, wrote Peach Drop and, impressively, avoid the temptation to recycle any of the better gags from last year. Occasionally, Peach Drop gets gridlocked in lame jokes about Atlanta media figures and predictable stereotypes, but the laughs pick up speed in the second act.

As the title suggests, Peach Drop begins on New Year’s Eve in Underground Atlanta, and generally features more holiday-themed sketches than last year. At worst, Peach Drop resorts to Capitol-steps-style namedropping based on current events and local celebrities, such as thinly conceived parodies of Jane Fonda (Amber Nash) or Dagmar Midcap (Amy Roeder). When Peach Drop tries too hard to be timely, like its reverence to the alien lady from the “V” TV series, the spectators shrug. Other times, however, the show hits the sweet spot of fresh, silly public obsessions, as with its musical number about “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.”

Continue Reading “Second City comedy show picks more peaches than pit”

(Photo by Greg Mooney)

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MONKEY BUSINESS: Adam Fristoe as a dapper alpha male

Primatologist Dr. Frans de Waal, the director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, dreaded the thought of actors in chimp costumes in a stage version of his book Chimpanzee Politics. In fact, the cast of Out of Hand Theater and Theater Emory’s Hominid wear dapper suits and short dresses while speaking English. Audiences who don’t know the new play’s source material, however, will quickly recognize them as primates in a zoo community.

Hominid’s family of chimps display bare feet and occasional animalistic body language, but mostly resemble a peaceable, sun-drenched commune. Written by Out of Hand and Ken Weitzman, Hominid takes some liberties in dramatizing primate behavior: I doubt that de Waal’s original research subjects gathered to sing hymns in celebration of springtime. Homind’s symbolic representations of chimpanzee dynamics offer touching instances of the chimps’ capacity for tenderness, ambition and reconciliation — which, in turn, holds up a mirror to humanity at its best and worst.

Continue Reading “Hominid considers human nature from animal perspective”

(Photo by Matthew Spaugh)

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THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID: John Benzinger and Rachel Garner in Fair Use

We should totally call dibs on Dad’s Garage Theatre’s Large Animal Games and Actor’s Express’s Fair Use as home-grown plays. Neither takes place in Atlanta and neither playwright currently lives here, but the local theater community can claim bragging rights to the world premieres of both witty comedies.

Large Animal Games takes its bow as part of a full season of new plays developed “in-house” at Dad’s Garage, although the company shares the co-world premiere of Large Animal Games with Impact Theatre of Berkeley, Calif. Writer Steve Yockey, currently playwright-in-residence at Marin Theatre Company, has long been a member of the “artistic family” of Dad’s, Out of Hand Theatre and Actor’s Express (as well as, briefly, a Creative Loafing employee). Fair Use by Chicago’s Sarah Gubbins was a finalist in the Alliance Theatre’s Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, a national award that’s been cultivating a new generation of theatrical talents for more than half a decade.

Continue Reading “Upwardly Mobile”

(Photo Courtesy Chris Ozment Photography)

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A LIFE IN THE THEATRE: Robert (André De Shields, from left) and John (Ariel Shafir) discuss their lives as actors.

In David Mamet’s A Life in the Theatre, veteran actor Robert (André De Shields) asks rising newcomer John (Ariel Shafir), “Could you perhaps do less?” in one of their scenes together. Theater professionals and fans will immediately recognize the insult, scarcely disguised by the veneer of politeness.

“Doing less” isn’t a goal of the Alliance Theatre’s production of Mamet’s thorny bouquet to thespians and stage lovers. Challenged to expand an intimate two-actor drama for the Alliance mainstage, director Robert O’Hara turns the show, in part, into a satire of contemporary theatrical spectacle in which more is less. Many scenes take place in the actors’ dressing room, but in this spare-no-expense version, the dressing room set elevates out of the floor.

Continue reading “Spectacle upstages script in Mamet’s A Life in the Theatre“

(Photo courtesy Alliance Theatre)

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Geoff "Googie" Uterhardt as gay rights icon Harvey Milk in the Onstage Atlanta production 'The Harvey Milk Show'

Gay rights icon Harvey Milk was murdered in 1978, but people refuse to let him go.  A biography and Oscar-winning documentary in the ’80s were followed by the successful play The Harvey Milk Show composed by Atlantan Patrick Hutchison in the ’90s. Then, the dam broke with last year’s success of the Oscar-winning feature film Milk, starring Sean Penn.

Around that time, local director Barbara Cole Uterhardt and her husband, actor Googie Uterhardt, approached Hutchison about bringing the production back.  “Sure enough, Patrick was willing to work with us,” Googie says.  And now The Harvey Milk Show is back at Onstage Atlanta through November 21.

“They made some changes, added a song in that hadn’t been in for awhile,” says Googie.  “Then I auditioned and got the part.”

“The part” would be the role of Harvey Milk, the gay community’s closest approximation of Martin Luther King, played by the only straight male actor in the entire production.

Continue reading “He’s baaack: Harvey Milk visits Onstage Atlanta” »

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Flannery O'Connor on her farm in Milledgeville, GA.

Marking the 30th anniversary of the publication as The Habit of Being, Emory is celebrating Flannery O’Connor’s letters tonight. The southern gothic icon published relatively little fiction in her short lifetime, but her letter writing was wildly prolific. The heavily trimmed-down Habit of Being is longer than the unabridged, complete collection her short stories. Confined to a life lived “between the house and the chicken yard,” as she once wrote corresponding with a friend, O’Connor used letters as a way to interact with a wide group of friends. Literary friendships, like those with Robert and Sally Fitzgerald, or more personal acquantences, like the queer, lapsed-Catholic Betty Hester, blossomed in her letters, taking on lives as vivid as any of her stories.

As part of the celebration, local actress Brenda Bynum will perform a selection of her letters with Robert and Sally Fitzgerald. Instead of paging though a dogeared copy of The Habits of Being to select material for the performance, Bynum just went to straight to the source. Emory houses all of O’Connor’s archives in their special collections library.

“You know, anyone can go and do that. If you like what you hear me read, you really should go see what I left out,” she told me over the phone this week. “I pick out things that I think will read well. These letters create a kind of narrative of the friendship.”

Continue reading “Emory celebrates Flannery O’Connor and The Habit of Being” »

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Euridice around town to promote The Atlanta Opera's production of Orfeo & Euridice

To garner interest in the premier of Orfeo & Euridice the Atlanta Opera is placing a living statue of Euridice in a different Atlanta neighborhood seven times between November 3 and November 18. The first person to take a picture with the statue each day she hits the streets gets a pair of free tickets to see the show. To win the contest just be the first to email your pic to cswint@atlantaopera.org. The winners will be contacted by e-mail and the photos will be posted to The Atlanta Opera’s Facebook page.

Euridice’s locations on upcoming dates from 11 a.m.–1 p.m. after the jump.

Continue reading “Find Euridice, win Opera tickets” »

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Just ahead of this week’s premiere of Hillary Clinton Got Me Pregnant, a one-woman show by the often hilarious Megan Gogerty, Synchronicity Theatre artistic director (and mother of newborn twins) Rachel May has announced the removal of the last two shows of the company’s 12th season:

Due to the financial climate, Synchronicity has had to make some adjustments to our 09/10 season. We will unfortunately be indefinitely postponing the last 2 shows of our season: Dead Man’s Cell Phone and The Brand New Kid. We look forward to programming these shows (with the terrific production teams and casts we have assembled) in future seasons.

The remainder of the Synchronicity’s 12th season (which began with a terrific version of the family show Bunnicula) stays in place, including an updated version of the company’s acclaimed Women + War and the kid’s classic Free To Be You and Me.

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Create a puppet workshop (Courtesy Joe Boris)

The Center for Puppetry Arts just received a $75,000 Common Good Funds Grant from the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta so they can keep doin’ what they do.

Since 1951, The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta has been connecting community members, nonprofits, and other partners to strengthen the Atlanta region through philanthropy. Today they are one of the largest Community Foundations out of the more than 700 that exist around the country. With the support of their donors, The Community Foundation averages more than $75 million in grants annually to an estimated 2,000 nonprofit organizations locally, nationally, and internationally.

The Center for Puppetry Arts nonprofit organization operates with minimal staff and limited resources and still manages to continually provide awesome programming to the community such as the Ghastly Dreadfuls this time of year. The Center is dedicated to educating the public about the past, present, and future of puppetry as an art form. It’s not afraid to experiment either, as with 2008’s Cinderella Della Circus. The Center also tries to make its programming accessible to as much of Atlanta as possible through ticket donations and special programming.

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The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports that theater owner Bob Wood bought the building from Inman Park Properties founder Jeff Notrica for upwards of $2.8 million. According to the article, Notrica (yes, the same Notrica that owns the embattled, beer-crushing Clermont) was facing foreclosure and the pair’s deal had been in the works since April. A foreclosure would have forced the theater out of its 14th Street home.

The loan secured by the building was scheduled for foreclosure this month, according to a foreclosure auction notice. The value of the loan was $2.8 million, but Wood says “I paid more for the building than that.”…”It saved him from foreclosure,” Wood said. “He’s been a great guy to us. We wanted to help.”

Read more from CL’s Scott Henry about “Inman Park Properties’ implosion.”

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While shivering over the scariest stage plays yesterday, I neglected to mention Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The sung-through musical seems so sharply different from scary “straight” plays that it belongs in another category altogether.

The vast majority of pop tunes about monsters and murderers tend to be cool, not creepy, from “Mack the Knife” to “Werewolves of London.” Pop music offers plenty of tracks for your Halloween party, including your average heavy metal Satanic anthem and seemingly every other song by The Cramps or Oingo Boingo. (My favorite is “Screaming Skull” by The Fleshtones.) But with rare exceptions like Primus’ “Mr. Krinkle,” they’re more for rocking you out than haunting your sleep.

On the other hand, Sondheim’s Grand Guignol musical from 1978 includes lovely solos and psychotic arias, none more blood-curdling than “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd.” Framing the musical, “Ballad” offers a portrait of murderous psychology from its very first words: “Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd. / His skin was pale and his eye was odd. / He shaved the faces of gentlemen / who never thereafter were heard of again.” It’s like a hundred Penny Dreadfuls distilled into less than five minutes. (Ironically, Tim Burton’s film version only includes an instrumental version of the song. Maybe he was chicken.) This performance version from 2006 Tony Awards broadcast begins and ends with “Ballad” and includes bits of Patti Lupone’s “The Worst Pies in London” and Michael Cerveris’ “My Friends.” The latter, a love song to a straight razor, builds to the horrific kicker, “My right arm is complete again!”

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The most frightening moments in live theater don’t always come where advertised. Mystery chestnuts like Sleuth or Deathtrap come across like suspenseful parlor games, while old-fashioned ghost stories like Conor McPherson’s The Weir, however atmospheric, seldom provide anything to lose sleep over. On the other hand, more high-brow examples of the modern “Theater of Menace,” like Harold Pinter’s enigmatic, paranoia-inducing The Birthday Party, Martin McDonagh’s totalitarian fable The Pillowman and Caryl Churchill’s apocalyptic fantasy Far Away all generate dread that lingers long after the curtain calls.

A spine-tingling, straight-up Gothic exception to rule, however, is The Woman in Black, currently creaking the boards at Theatre in the Square. The late Stephen Mallatratt wrote the play in 1987 to fill a playhouse’s Christmas slot while keeping the number of actors and props to a minimum. Mallatratt promptly scared the knickers off England, and The Woman in Black has subsequently played in London’s West End for 20 years and countless other theaters elsewhere. As a theatrical ghost story, it comes second only in popularity to Hamlet, I guess.

The ingenious quality of The Woman in Black is the way it taps the mood-creating powers of oral-tradition storytelling and the chilling power of live stage effects. T-Square’s production team take to the latter like kids playing a spooky prank on their parents. The begins when aging lawyer Arthur Kipps (David Milford) engages an theatrical impresario identified as “The Actor” (Gil Brady) to help him tell a story he’s desperate to get off his chest. The Actor suggests a theatrical experience rather than a dry, five-hour recitation, and sets up a funny contrast between Kipp’s rushed, amateurish delivery and the younger man’s ability to set a scene. The initial tension of how to tell the story soon gives over to its compelling content.

Continue reading “13 Days of Halloween: The scariest stage play” »

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“TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad?” Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” hooks the reader from its first sentence and is a perennial contender for the most frightening short story ever written.

Unlike nearly all forms of fiction, however, the initial words aren’t always the most crucial to scary short stories. Frequently the last line provides the killing stroke. A truly enduring, haunting tale should end on a note that feels like a trapdoor opening up beneath its readers, leaving them off-balance and breathless. Sudden endings are a plus, like the way “The Tell-Tale Heart” ends with the nameless, murderous narrator, convinced he hears his victim’s heart beating, snaps and admits his crime:

Continue reading “13 Days of Halloween: The scariest short story” »

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Dad's Garage new artistic director Kevin Gillese

Dad’s Garage announced last February that then artistic director Kate Warner would be leaving the neighborhood theater staple in April 2009 to become artistic director of Boston’s New Repertory Theatre. In June, Curt Holman’s CL cover story on the playhouse’s changing lineup asked, “Can Dad’s Garage bridge the generation gap in its second decade?” The answer to that question may not be far off. Dad’s Garage announced today that its search for artistic director has come to an end: Kevin Gillese, current artistic director of sister theater Rapid Fire Theatre in Edmonton, AL, Canada, has been tapped to fill the vacancy.

From the press release:

[Kevin's] background includes improvisation, theatre and video work and his core strengths include ensemble growth and development, collaborative creation and the production of new and original work across multiple disciplines. “In addition to Kevin’s talent and intellect, he’s a whole lot of fun to be around,” said Managing Director, Lena Carstens. “In a time when we are presenting all new and original work, we’ll benefit from having fresh perspective from someone who’s already in the Dad’s family…even if he has been a distant cousin north of the border.”

Continue reading “Dad’s Garage taps new artistic director Kevin Gillese” »

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