Atlanta’s arts scene is vibrant and exciting, and Encore Atlanta is proud to be a part of it. Here you’ll find news bits about and ruminations on The Scene.
State to cease funding Georgia Council for the Arts
On April 13, the House Appropriations Committee voted to eliminate the Georgia Council for the Arts (GCA) budget beginning with the 2011 fiscal year. If the vote is passed, GCA (the grassroots program that ensures there is arts programming in every Georgia county) will cease operations and Georgia will be the only state without a state-funded arts agency.
In addition, Georgia will be ineligible for money from the National Endowment for the Arts, which funds programs throughout the state, as the grant is contingent upon a GCA budget of at least $900,000.
However, we’re not just foregoing a production here and a play there. If passed, this legislation will damage our economy through a loss of revenue and jobs, and will essentially remove our gateway to humanities and the arts. Don’t let that happen. If the arts matter to you, take action. Click here to make your voice heard.
The 2010-2011 Alliance Theatre Season
The Alliance Theatre has announced their upcoming 2010-2011 season. Productions range from children’s classics to world-premiere musical comedies and will be held at the Alliance and Hertz Stages.
The Lineup:
Bring It On: the Musical is a world premiere musical about the world of fierce competitive cheerleading, based on the popular movie and the book by Jeff Whitty. Featuring direction and choreography by Tony Award-winner Andy Blankenbuehler, this musical comedy is sure to “bring it.”
The Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at a Celebration of Their First One Hundred Years is a new romantic comedy by award-winning playwright of Blues for an Alabama Sky and Flyin’ West, Pearl Cleage. This world premiere celebrates freedom and tells the story of the Nacirema Society of Montgomery, Ala at its 100th anniversary celebration.
August: Osage County is a dark comedy that depicts a family gathering that turns into a train wreck, featuring some of Atlanta’s favorite actors as you’ve never seen them before.
Sammy & Me is the story about singer, dancer and child star Sammy Davis Jr., which takes the audience on a journey through his life and music. Features 15 of Sammy’s songs, including “Where or When,” “Smile,” “Mr. Bojangles” and “Candy Man.”
Spoon Lake Blues is a bold new comedy that tells the story of two brothers who resort to burglary in order to save their house from the bank. Written by Josh Tobiessen, this world premiere will leave you laughing.
Carapace is the winner of the 2010 Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition. Written by David Mitchell Robinson, it tells the story of a man on a mission to do right to his daughter on her 23rd birthday.
Middle School the Musical is Alliance’s first interactive show, filled with improv and music. “An improvisational survival guide for tweenagers,” a team of four students will guide children and families through the essentials of middle school, because it’s just “not easy being tween.”
Honk! is a children’s musical about a unique little duckling on a journey to find himself. Winner of the Olivier Award for Best Musical, this show is perfect for families and based on “The Ugly Duckling.”
A Christmas Carol is a heartwarming story, featuring holiday carols and your favorite Atlanta actors. Rediscover the joys of the holiday season with infamous characters like Ebenezer Scrooge, Mr. Fezziwig. Belle and Tiny Tim. This show is based on the story by Charles Dickens and is directed by Rosemary Newcott.
The Second City: Miracle on 1280 Peachtree Street is a world premiere written and created by the cast of The Second City. This sketch comedy will remind you of why you’re lucky to be spending the holidays in Atlanta. This is Second City’s third Atlanta-centric installment for the popular sketch comedy troupe.
Single tickets go on sale this summer. Subscriptions are available now.
For more information and performance dates, visit Alliancetheatre.org.
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra appoints new president
Stanley E. Romanstein was recently named the new president of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. He will be replacing former president Allison Vulgamore, who held the position from 1993 to 2009; his term will begin on May 3, 2010.
“I’m tremendously excited to help lead this remarkable institution. I have long admired the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, since the days of Robert Shaw, when I was a student and aspiring singer in South Carolina,” stated Romanstein. “It is to Atlanta’s great credit that the Orchestra has built such an impressive artistic reputation. I’m honored to be chosen, I look forward to joining the team and I can’t wait to get started.”
Dr. Romanstein is currently the president and CEO of the Minnesota Humanities Center in St. Paul. He earned his undergraduate degree in music and received a master’s degree in conducting and a Ph.D. in musicology at the University of Cincinnati’s Conservatory of Music. He also has 22 years of leadership and management experience in the arts and education.
Fellow leaders of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra are eagerly awaiting Romanstein’s arrival.
Music Director Robert Spano stated, “Stanley is an impressive person — articulate, musical and passionate. I’m excited thinking about the future of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with his leadership, which promises to be dynamic, insightful and exhilarating.”
Allison Goldstein is a 12th grade student at Alpharetta High School, who will be attending the University of Georgia as journalism major in the fall of 2010.
Broadway Across America Atlanta’s 2010-2011 season
Broadway Across America Atlanta announced their 2010-2011 season at The Fabulous Fox Theatre. The lineup is filled with Broadway sensations and award-winning fan favorites:
Dreamgirls (Oct. 12 – Oct. 17, 2010) is the Tony and Academy Award-winning musical that tells the story of a 1960s singing girl group and their journey to fame and fortune. Featuring extraordinary hits like “One Night Only” and “Listen,” every performance is sure to be unforgettable.
West Side Story (Jan. 25 – Jan. 30, 2011) is considered to be one of Broadway’s finest. This musical, based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, tells the greatest love story of all time. Directed by two-time Tony Award-winner Arthur Laurents, this production is as powerful and timely as ever, featuring American classics like “Something’s Coming,” “I Feel Pretty” and “Tonight.”
Burn the Floor (March 22 – March 27, 2011) is an “electrifying” Latin and Ballroom dance spectacular direct from a record-breaking run on Broadway. Having thrilled audiences in over 30 countries, this production has reinvented ballroom dancing. The fire and passion of the show is sure to leave you breathless.
Shrek the Musical (April 26 – May 1, 2011) is a twisted fairy tale for the whole family, featuring 19 new songs, extraordinary dancing and stunning scenery. Based on the hit movie, it’s said to be the “funniest new musical on Broadway.”
Hair (May 17 – May 22, 2011) is the story of a group of young Americans searching for peace and love in the 1960s, featuring unforgettable songs like “Aquarius,” “Good Morning” and “Easy to be Heard.” The winner of the 2009 Tony Award for Best Musical Revival, it’s “the ultimate American rock musical!” (Parental discretion is advised.)
The Phantom of the Opera (June 30 – July 25, 2010) is the award-award winning tragic love story of an opera singer and a young composer, featuring “the most lavish sets, costumes and special effects ever to have been created for the stage.” Created by Andrew Lloyd Webber, this production is the longest-running show in Broadway history and typically sells out when it comes to town. (Co-presented with Theatre of the Stars.)
Nickelodeon’s Storytime Live! and The Phantom of the Opera are season specials, perfect for families and theatre buffs.
For more information on the 2010-2011 season or to order tickets online, visit Broadwayacrossamerica.com.
High Museum awards 2010 David C. Driskell Prize
On Monday, April 19, the High Museum of Art will honor artist Renee Stout as the 2010 recipient of the David C. Driskell Prize. Named for the renowned African-American artist and art scholar David C. Driskell, the annual award recognizes an artist/scholar early in their career, whose work makes an original and important contribution to African-American art or art history.
Based in Washington, D.C., Stout works with a variety of media including photography, sculpture, painting, drawing and printmaking. Her works examine the impact of the African Diaspora and the traditions of her African heritage as well as the themes of self-exploration, empowerment and healing. Using a variety of elements and visual languages, including African aesthetics and secondhand materials, she creates narratives that tie history to contemporary society.
“Renee Stout is a visual artist fully incorporating every available resource to create works relevant to both past and present,” stated High Museum Director Michael E. Shapiro. “Her ability to draw upon the implications of the African Diaspora and highlight African culture through her imaginative and distinctive art exemplifies the qualities of a David C. Driskell Prize recipient. We are pleased to support her vision and development through this award.”
Catch a world-class collection of rolling sculptures at the High Museum of Art
Since automobiles first began to replace the horse and carriage, a love affair has existed between man and these technological marvels. From now until June 20, the High Museum of Art has on display 18 extraordinary cars that date from the 1930s to the 1960s.
“These are 18 of the most rare and spectacularly conceived vehicles, which show man at his most creative and innovative,” says Michael Bartsch, of Porsche Cars North America, the exhibit’s lead corporate sponsor. “This exhibit is not about ‘cars,’” he stresses. “It is about art, design, emotion, fashion and history.”
And each of the cars do evoke emotion, glamour, a feeling of velocity, an optimism for the future and encapsulate the fashions of the past in its own way, which is why Michael E. Shapiro, the Nancy and Holcombe T. Green Jr. Director of the High Museum of Art calls them “rolling sculptures.” Before “The Allure of the Automobile” opened on March 21, Shapiro says they already had sold more than 20,000 tickets to people from 18 states and Canada. And they will be coveted tickets: The exhibit will only appear in Atlanta.
The first part focuses on the custom body work done by coach builders between the two world wars to create special automobile bodies for discerning clientele. “Until World War I, most cars had been utilitarian objects with one principal goal: transportation,” says Ken Gross, guest curator of the exhibition. “But as tastes and wealth coincided, designers could create and/or customize an automobile’s body, dramatically altering its silhouette and decoration, producing artful, one-of-a-kind objects. Lavish and often beautifully trimmed with aluminum, chrome, inlaid wood and lacquer, the streamlined silhouettes of the finest mid-century cars represent prime examples of Art Moderne design.”
On display in this section are two cars owned by Clark Gable: a 1935 Dusenberg JN Roadster, which had a 320-horsepower engine when most cars only had 100-horsepower engines, and a 1934 Packard LeBaron Runabout Speedster, which has a 12-cylinder engine (most cars today have V6 engines). Other automobiles include a 1933 Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow (“Only five were built; only three survive; and we have one,” Gross says); a 1937 Delage D8-120S, which was so often seen driven by beautiful women it prompted actor Peter Ustinov to remark, “One drives, of course, an Alfa Romero; one is driven in a Rolls, but one gives only a Delage to one’s favorite mistress”; the airplane-inspired 1937 Dubonnet Hispano-Suiza H-6C “Xenia,” which took five years to build; a 1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster; a 1938 Alfa Romero 8C2900B Touring Berlinetta; and a 1937 Bugatti Type 57S Atalante (my personal favorite is the 1937 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic-Electron Coupe, but any Bugatti is a work of art).
The second section of the exhibition spotlights the divergence in design between American and European post-war automobile manufacturers. While business boomed in America, cars began to personify the population’s economic optimism and desire to enter the space race. In Europe, however, cars got smaller and sportier.
Two rare Porsches bridge the divide between the pre- and post-war automobiles on display. The shell of the 1938-39 Porsche Type 64, the first car to bear the Porsche name, looks like a modern sports car. “It was designed for the Berlin to Rome race that was canceled due to WWII,” Bartsch says. “This is the first time it’s been exhibited outside of Germany.” Along with a second rare Porsche in the exhibit, the 1953 Porsche 550, Bartsch says “designers make pilgrimages to look at these [automobiles] to remind themselves of the Porsche DNA” before beginning work on new models.
Some of the cars in the post-war section, like the 1957 Jaguar XK-SS Roadster that Steve McQueen once owned (only 16 were ever built), 1961 Ferrari 250 GT Comp and 1959 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray, seem like they’re in perpetual motion, even when stationary. Other highlights include a 1948 Tucker Model 48 Torpedo, which was manufactured in Tucker, Ga., and the 1954 Dodge Firearrow III Concept Coupe, which is the only one of its kind.
Special events being held in conjunction with “The Allure of the Automobile” include a family day on April 11 and a classic car parade and showcase down Peachtree Street on May 8. For more information, call 404-733-HIGH or visit high.org.
Here’s a sneak preview of what you will see:
Introducing the Atlanta Opera 2010-2011 season
The Atlanta Opera’s three-show 2010-2011 season at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre will kick off with Puccini’s La bohème on Oct. 2, 5, 8 and 10. Set in wintry Paris, La bohème is a story of beauty, love and idealism that is subjected to the harsh realities of life. Sung in Italian with English subtitles, the piece will feature sets from the Arizona Opera production.
On Feb. 26 and March 1, 4 and 6, 2011, Porgy and Bess will follow the lives of several 1930s Charleston residents yearning for great love and a better life. The Gershwin classic features the Atlanta Opera Chorus and Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart in his company debut.
Così fan tutte closes the season with four performances on April 9, 12, 15 and 17. The youthful comedy is a Mozart classic that explores the relationships of two soldiers who test the faithfulness of their fiancés by pretending to be called away to duty; what they discover when they “return” is more than either expected.
For additional show information, or to purchase single or season tickets, visit Atlantaopera.org.
Arts Access Program at the High Museum: 100,000 participants and counting
The High Museum of Art recently reached a major milestone: its Art Access program, which provides metro Atlanta students with free Museum visits, has welcomed more than 100,000 participants since 2004.
The program gives students and chaperones free admission to the museum, complimentary teacher resources and money for school bus transportation. In addition, the child and his or her family receive additional free admission tickets.
The Kendeda Fund has provided funding for a grant seeking to make Art Access a permanent program at the High Museum.
The Art Access program focuses on providing a compelling visual arts experience, especially for metro Atlanta students from high-risk schools or districts where arts education funding has been cut. The program is open to all public schools and all grade levels in the 10-county metro Atlanta area, and in the city of Marietta and city of Decatur school districts.
“The High has had the privilege and ability to significantly enrich the educational experiences of thousands of Atlanta children by providing a foundation for life-long learning and enjoyment of the visual arts through Art Access,” stated Patricia Rodewald, the High’s Eleanor McDonald Storza director of education. “We look forward to continued support and our next 100,000 students.”
Allison Goldstein is a 12th grade student at Alpharetta High School, who will be attending the University of Georgia as journalism major in the fall of 2010.
Announcing Theater of the Stars’ 58th season
Theater of the Stars’ 2010 lineup celebrates 58 seasons of presenting musicals at the Fabulous Fox Theatre.
“We have some wonderful world-class entertainment in store for 2010, from old-fashioned fun to brand new shows that are sure to dazzle,” stated Theater of the Stars Producer Christopher B. Manos.
The 2010 season:
Little House on the Prairie, The Musical (June 15 – June 20): the beloved celebration of early America featuring Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura for 10 years on the timeless television series, appearing onstage as “Ma.” Based on the classic book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
The Phantom of the Opera (June 26 – July 6): the award-award winning tragic love story of an opera singer and a young composer, featuring “the most lavish sets, costumes and special effects ever to have been created for the stage.” Created by Andrew Lloyd Webber, this production is the longest running show in Broadway history, and typically sells out.
The Sound of Music (Aug. 24 – Aug. 29): the heartwarming musical featuring infamous titles like “My Favorite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi,” “So Long, Farewell” and of course, “The Sound of Music.”
Blue Man Group (Sept. 7 – Sept. 12): a wildly popular combination of music, comedy and theatrics described as “an intensely exciting and widely outrageous experience that leaves the entire audience in a blissful, euphoric state.” Making its Atlanta debut, the show has played for years in cities such as New York, Chicago and Orlando.
Nine to Five: The Musical (Sept. 28 – Oct. 3): the new musical comedy straight from Broadway, featuring original music and lyrics by Dolly Parton. Based on the book by Patricia Resnick and the popular 1980s film.
Irving Berlin’s White Christmas (Nov. 2 – Nov. 7): the bouyant story of two showbiz veteran hoofers putting on a show to help an old army buddy, packed with dancing, romance, laughter, and some of the best songs ever written. Directed by Tony Award-winner Walter Bobbie, this show promises to be a heartwarming experience for the entire family.
Tickets for the Fantastic 58th Season of Musicals are on sale now at Theaterofthestars.com.
Allison Goldstein is a 12th grade student at Alpharetta High School, who will be attending the University of Georgia as journalism major in the fall of 2010.
Runnicles’ to conduct Atlanta Symphony Orchestra through 2012 season
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) extended the contract of Principle Guest Conductor Donald Runnicles for an additional year, through the 2012 season.
“The excitement and fulfillment of working with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra deepens for me each year,” Runnicles stated. “I have such confidence in both this orchestra and Robert [Spano's] leadership, and look forward to continuing our musical partnership.”
The 2010 season marks Runnicles’ ninth season with the ASO, as well as his ninth year of collaboration with Musical Director Robert Spano.
“It is my greatest joy to work with this orchestra, and I can think of no better artistic partner and friend to share in this journey [with] than Donald,” Spano stated. “I am so happy to have him here, and I look forward to all that lies before us.”
Allison Goldstein is a 12th grade student at Alpharetta High School, who will be attending the University of Georgia as journalism major in the fall of 2010.
