Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre is taking its 2017-18 season on the road to smaller venues — including ones in Buckhead, Brookhaven and Dunwoody — as its Midtown home undergoes renovation.
Part of the Woodruff Arts Center, the Alliance is a top metro Atlanta theater company. As its 1968 theater space is rebuilt and expanded, the Alliance will produce each of the season’s plays in different venues, starting in June. Perimeter-area venues include the Atlanta History Center and the Galloway School in Buckhead; Oglethorpe University’s Conant Performing Arts Center in Brookhaven; and the Marcus Jewish Community Center in Dunwoody.
“If we do this work right, each work will feel inevitably matched to its venue,” Alliance artistic director Susan V. Booth said in a press release, “and we’ll be both taking our loyal supporters on a curated trip around their city, and meeting new audiences that we can hopefully bring home with us in the years ahead.”
The Galloway School will be one of the hosts for the Alliance’s world premiere of “The Dancing Granny.”
“It is our hope that through this performance, audiences will connect with the painter, poet, musician, storyteller, and dancer hidden within,” said Peggy Benkeser, the school’s director of the arts, in the press release.
The Alliance may establish a longer-term presence in the Perimeter area. Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul recently said that Woodruff and Alliance officials have met with him about possible productions in a theater set to open next year in his city’s City Springs project.
Meanwhile, here are Alliance productions to be performed locally during the 2017-18 season:
The Dancing Granny
June 10-18, Conant Performing Arts Center, Oglethorpe University, and June 24-July 2, The Galloway School.
A world premiere for youth and families based on a beloved children’s book about a clever spider of African folklore by 2017 Newbery Medal winner Ashley Bryan.
Shakespeare in Love
Aug. 30-Sept. 24, Conant Performing Arts Center, Oglethorpe University.
A new play based on the Academy Award-winning 1998 film about young Will Shakespeare finding his muse in Viola, a beautiful young woman who is Will’s greatest admirer and will stop at nothing, including breaking the law, to appear in his next play. The play will be directed by Richard Garner, artistic director of Georgia Shakespeare, which was formerly based at the Conant.
Crossing Delancey
Oct. 7-Nov. 18, Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta.
The play that inspired the hit film, “Crossing Delancey” is a comedy about the clash between traditional Jewish-American immigrant culture and the more modern aspirations of the next generation.
Native Guard
Jan. 13-Feb. 4, 2018, Atlanta History Center.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of poetry by former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, “Native Guard” will be staged this season amid the Atlanta History Center’s extraordinary Civil War collection. The play juxtaposes the personal experiences of Trethewey, a child of a then-illegal marriage between her African-American mother and white father living in 1960s Mississippi, with the experience of a soldier in the Native Guard, one of the first African-American Union units in the Civil War, which was charged with guarding white Confederate captives.
For tickets and information, call 404-733-5000 or see alliancetheatre.org.