1) John Prendergast leads a days’ worth of Raise Hope for Congo events.
2) A Cappella hosts Reagan scholar James Mann at the Jimmy Carter Library.
3) Tent Meeting opens at Theatrical Outfit.
4) Studioplex holds its Second Wednesday Art Stroll.
5) Clem Snide plays the Earl.
(Photo by Jonathan Foreman)
1) The Atlanta Rollergirls kick ass and take names at the Yaarab Shrine Center for their season opener.
2) ATLexis09 raises funds for Theatrical Outfit with comedian Ed Helms.
3) Booze it up at the Oakhurst Wine Crawl.
4) The Westside Arts District Art Walk gets under way at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, winding down at Octane.
5) Scion Rock Fest invades the Masquerade.
(Photo by Colin J)
1) Going with Jenny opens at Theatrical Outfit.
2) Political insider Matt Towery discusses Paranoid Nation: The Real Story of the 2008 Fight for the Presidency at Manuel’s Tavern.
3) Semi Precious Weapons and Nico Vega play Drunken Unicorn.
4) Stephen J. Cannell discusses On the Grind at Margaret Mitchell House & Museum.
5) Junior League Band plays Smith’s Olde Bar.
(Photo by Chris Bartelski)
In 2006, Theatrical Outfit staged one of Atlanta’s most impressive world premiere Southern plays of the decade, Keeping Watch by Thomas Ward. For Going with Jenny, opening Wed., Jan. 28 at Theatrical Outfit, the playwright shares writing duties with his wife, Sherry Jo. The play’s a semi-autobiographical, he said/she said account of dating and marriage starring Mandy Schmeider and Travis Smith. Married for 11 years, the Wards currently teach at Baylor University in Texas and discuss the perils of writing about their relationship while still being in their relationship.
How did you meet?
Thomas: We met in college doing theater together. It’s almost so romantic it makes me puke, but we played Tevye and Golda opposite each other in Fiddler on the Roof and started dating.
Sherry Jo: We had to fight not to have “Sunrise, Sunset” at our wedding.
Thomas, you were more experienced as a playwright before Going with Jenny. How did you decide to collaborate with Sherry Jo?
Thomas: Right when Keeping Watch opened, I guess I wanted to strike when the iron was hot. I told Tom Key (Theatrical Outfit’s artistic director) I had a one-man play in my drawer, and I wanted his feedback on it, for his expertise in the one-man show form. He came back and said he wanted to produce it. After Sherry and I left Atlanta and went to Baylor, I talked to Tom who said he was still interested but that it was too short for his 2008-2009 season. During that conversation, I said “What if Sherry wrote Act Two?” Tom jumped at that, and I told Sherry. She was familiar with what I’d written, and I said “Write a response to it.”
Sherry Jo: It’s been an interesting process because it felt like a commission for me. I felt close to the play because Thomas had always shown me his writing. Plus, it was about marriage and ex-girlfriends, so I was happy to get my two cents in and make him the punch line of some of the jokes. (more…)
Today’s Air Loaf features CL’s Chanté LaGon and Curt Holman chatting about Theatrical Outfit’s production of A Lesson Before Dying — Romulus Linney’s death-penalty drama, set in Louisiana in 1948.
Air Loaf is broadcast weekdays on 1690 WMLB-AM at approximately 8:10 a.m., 12:20 p.m. and 6:20 p.m.
Subscribe to the Air Loaf feed to download every new episode automatically.
THREE WISE MEN: Hugh Adams (left), Barry Stoltze and Brik Berkes in Theatrical Outfit's 'It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play.'
Something about radio seems particularly suited to the holidays, perhaps because we grow up with the tradition of radio stations switching to all-Christmas formats after Thanksgiving. Several theaters, including Theatrical Outfit and the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company, are staging holiday plays that tap into the live radio format. Even if a performance isn’t going out over the airwaves, the audience still feels a charge when that “ON THE AIR” sign lights up.
The 1940s Radio Hour, for years a perennial holiday show at Marietta’s Theatre in the Square and playing this year at Dahlonega’s Holly Theater, evokes the spirit, songs and commercials of the WW II era. From Dec. 3-21, Theatrical Outfit harks back to roughly the same period with a remount of last year’s Christmas show, It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, which imagines Frank Capra’s classic film performed for an audience by five actors. (more…)
The program for Theatrical Outfit’s production of A Lesson Before Dying (Romulus Linney’s theatrical adaptation of Ernest J. Gaines’ acclaimed novel) features a note from executive artistic director Tom Key, in which he remarks:
A Lesson Before Dying takes place in 1948 Louisiana. Sixty years later, as I write this in Georgia on Sep. 22, 2008, in less than 24 hours, Troy Davis maybe put to death by lethal injection fo rhe 1989 murder of Savanahh Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail — a murder which many believe he may not have commited. For Officer MacPhail, Mr. Davis, for their families, and for all of us, I pray that a day will come when no one would find the treatment of the character Jefferson in Ernest Gaines’ novel dramatically plausible — when there would no longer be an audience for this kind of tragedy. In the meantime, I must have hope, and I have not found another place in which it can be learned other than in this particular classroom.
(On Oct. 24 Troy Davis received a stay of execution pending an appeal before a federal appeals court.)
Although A Lesson Before Dying involves a black man convicted for a crime he probably did not commit, it’s not a race to save Jefferson from the electric chair, like A Time to Kill. Nor does it explore the racist Southern legal system of the era along the lines of To Kill a Mockingbird — the racial injustice of the system is taken as a disheartening given. Instead, it’s most like the movie Dead Man Walking, in which an outsider tries to prepare a condemned man to be executed.
Today’s Air Loaf features CL’s Chanté LaGon and Curt Holman chatting about two current musicals: Horizon Theatre’s Alter Boyz (through Nov. 16) and Theatrical Outfit’s Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (through Oct. 5).
Air Loaf is broadcast weekdays on 1690 WMLB-AM at approximately 8:10 a.m., 12:20 p.m. and 6:20 p.m.
Subscribe to the Air Loaf feed to download every new episode automatically.
1) Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn continues at Theatrical Outfit.
2) Tussle, the Selmanaires and Recompas play the Earl.
3) Dialog in the Dark continues at Atlantic Station.
4) Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby play the Star Bar.
5) Whole World Improv Theatre presents Improv in the Park in Piedmont Park.
(Photo by Bill DeLoach)
Today’s Air Loaf features CL’s Chanté LaGon and Curt Holman giving a round up of the upcoming fall 2008 theater season, featuring Theatrical Outfit’s Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Sept. 10-Oct. 5), Horizon Theatre’s Altar Boyz (Sept. 12-Nov. 16), 7 Stages’ The Little Prince (Sept. 27-Oct. 26) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Oct. 18-Nov. 2), and Full Circle, the Alliance Theatre’s two-play/one-cast repertory of August Wilson’s The Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf.
Air Loaf is broadcast weekdays on 1690 WMLB-AM at approximately 8:10 a.m., 12:20 p.m. and 6:20 p.m.
