Encore Atlanta

The Rialto Center for the Arts is celebrating its 95th birthday this season with a year-long celebration featuring a unique mix of music and dance performed by local artists.

2011-2012 Rialto Center schedule:
October 22, 2011: A Night in Treme
October 30, 2011: Salon de Danse
November 5, 2011: Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba Stars of Béla Fleck’s Africa Project
November 19, 2011: Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE: A Dance Company On Earth Together to the music of Stevie Wonder
December 3-4, 2011: Gala Holiday Concert Georgia State University School of Music
December 10, 2011: Holiday Jazz Vespers featuring the Atlanta Jazz Chorus
January 21, 2012: The Capitol Steps Musical and Political Satire Straight From Washington, D.C.
January 27-28, 2012: Off the Edge: Take the Leap!
February 11, 2012: The Music of Johnny Mercer and Friends featuring Joe Gransden and jazz vocalist Maria Howell with the Georgia State University Jazz Band
February 18, 2012: Mediterranean Meditations featuring Israel’s Yasmin Levy
February 25, 2012: McCoy Tyner with his Trio and special guest Joe Lovano
March 10, 2012: Trey McIntyre Project
March 17, 2012: Spanish Harlem Orchestra
March 24, 2012: Born in India, Raised in Spain: Flamenco’s Journey featuring Anoushka Shankar
March 31, 2012: Rialto Goes Back to the Bayou: New Voices in Zydeco and Cajun featuring Cedric Watson et Bijou Creole and Feufollet
April 13-15, 2012: Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro Georgia State University Opera Theatre and Symphony Orchestra
April 20, 2012: Dave Douglas with the Georgia State University Jazz Band
April 21, 2012: Two Cultures, One Voice: Israel Meets Africa
April 28, 2012: Poncho Sanchez and Terence Blanchard in Cubano Be! Cubano Bop! A Tribute to Chano Pozo & Dizzy Gillespie

Visit rialtocenter.org for more information.

Throughout the month of July, some of Atlanta’s most prestigious arts organizations will be offering special ticket deals for December holiday shows.

The Christmas in July promotion will be offered exclusively through PoshDealz by Encore Atlanta. A different show will go on sale each week and some of the deals come bundled with restaurant gift cards.

Last week, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra released special tickets to their Dec. 1 concert of Handel’s Messiah (the deal comes with a $20 Fifth Group dining card, too!).

This week, 7 Stages will be offering a limited number of discounted tickets to their Krampus Christmas. And three more special offers will be announced this month.

To ensure you get the latest news on what’s available, sign up for the Encore newsletter on this website, on Encore Atlanta’s Facebook page or “like” PoshDealz’s Facebook page.

Maybe it’s just the Stephen King fangirl in me or my love for the genius that is Kent Gash, but I’m super-excited about the upcoming Alliance Theatre season. Of course, purchasing a season ticket will get you the best seats in the house, but if you’re a commitment-phobe, single tickets now are available by calling the box office at 404-733-5000 or visiting alliancetheatre.org. For premium seats, call 404-733-4600 or visit alliancetheatre.org/seasontickets.

Here’s what will be playing this season:

Coca-Cola Series on the Alliance Stage

Holiday Shows

First, the bad news:

One of the more disconcerting recent developments on the Atlanta theater scene is Theroun Patterson’s decision to stop acting, at the relatively prime age of 37. After some 10 years establishing himself as a smart and sophisticated stage presence around town – in the Alliance’s Day of the Kings, Georgia Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Actor’s Express’ Burn This and Dad’s Garage’s Skin – he ultimately shattered that image with his chilling performance as a ghetto thug in Synchronicity’s 1:23.

Talk about going out with a bang. No one else may have known it at the time (2009), but Patterson says he realized that his days as an actor were ending – and just when he’d started landing parts on TV (“House of Payne”) and film (Madea Goes to Jail), no less.

“It took me those 10 years to get it out of my system, but I’d known for a while that I wanted to stop one day,” he recalls during a recent interview. “I hadn’t had that succession of roles where it felt like I’d said everything I wanted to say as an actor, but once I did Skin and Voices Underwater (also with Synchronicity) and 1:23, I was like, OK, I’ve done these three really different roles and stretched myself in three really different ways. At that point, I didn’t really have the desire to keep doing it anymore.”

Now, the good news:

Our loss as an audience is, well, our gain as an audience, too. That Patterson decided to step away from acting doesn’t mean he’s stepping away from theater altogether. “I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember and I always knew that I eventually wanted to write plays, to create characters and stories from the other side of the equation. It was just a matter of making the time to do it,” he explains.

Roughly five years ago, Patterson started making up in earnest for “a lot of lost time,” and since then he has already penned more than half a dozen plays – as he describes them, “dark comedies that contain elements of magical realism, about relationships and the difficulty of love.” Most of them have been developed under the auspices of Working Title Playwrights, an Atlanta organization that fosters local dramatists by presenting public workshops and readings of their scripts.

The logical next step for Patterson: the first full-fledged production of his work. His family drama A Thousand Circlets, winner of the 2011 Essential Theatre Georgia Playwriting Award, will serve as the centerpiece of the company’s 13th-annual New Play Festival. Running June 30 through July 31 at Actor’s Express (887 W. Marietta St. at the King’s Plow Arts Center), this year’s rotating repertory will also include regional premieres of Lee Blessing’s Great Falls and Melanie Marnich’s A Sleeping Country.

A Thousand Circlets (the title refers to a Coleridge poem about the rippling effects of love) reunites an affluent family for a celebration that turns somber, as skeletons emerge from the closet and startling revelations are made. The father is an aging, ailing architect who recently landed his dream job of designing a Manhattan skyscraper. He and his second wife welcome home the three grown children they share from their earlier marriages – his-and-her sons (both of whom went into the family business, to drastically different ends) and his daughter, a floundering journalist.

Patterson says, “It’s a story about family. It’s about how we all inevitably go off to live our lives and how we eventually come back together to deal with hard things. The family in the play is at that point, figuring out a way to live with each other, redefining who they are and what they mean to each other. The basic theme is about what legacy we leave behind, what mark we make in the world.”

Incidentally, and yet quite intentionally, Patterson’s characters are also African-American. “There’s nothing in the story that speaks to them being African-American, but I specified that in the script, because if I didn’t, nine times out of 10 – nine-and-a-half times out of 10 – it would be cast the other way,” he elaborates.

“Traditionally, plays with African-American characters are all about issues of race and racial experiences, but this play deliberately doesn’t deal with any of that. I purposely stayed away from it. I just wanted to write a universal family drama. That they happen to be African-American isn’t related to what they’re going through.”

What must that mean to Essential Theatre Artistic Director Peter Hardy, who has done such an admirable job of producing plays that do speak to the African-American experience? (In just the last few years: Leaving Limbo, about the 19th-century slave trade; The Darker Face of the Earth, set on a post-Civil War plantation; Fix Me So I Can Stand, about the wrongful conviction of a black man in the Depression-era South; and Jim Crow and the Rhythm Darlings, set on the segregated jazz circuit of the 1940s.)

Does the matter-of-factness about the racial identity of Patterson’s characters make Circlets a harder sell to African-American audiences? “It’ll be interesting to see. I’d hope they might find that refreshing,” Hardy replies.

What’s more important, he continues, “It’s a very strong, well-crafted, intelligently written drama. There’s a determination in this family to hold on to their success, and that may have a special resonance because they’re African-American. At the same time, though, there are subtle conflicts between the characters as individuals and a lot of different dynamics challenging them as a family, and that isn’t race specific at all.”

Directed by frequent Essential collaborator Betty Hart, Circlets features veteran actor Tony Vaughn as the self-made patriarch. Yvonne Singh portrays the wife, with Tony Goolsby, Precious Bright and Olubajo Sonubi rounding out the ensemble as the wayward kids.

As this year’s winning playwright, Patterson will receive a $600 check. Even so, he admits the real thrill will be seeing A Thousand Circlets come to fruition – from the page to the stage.

“Essential has always been dedicated to doing new works by local writers every year, and that’s huge,” Patterson observes. “Opportunities like that are sorely lacking, so giving writers that kind of a shot, it’s invaluable. How else are you supposed to grow?”

After a pause, he smiles and adds, “Nobody writes plays just for them to be read. You write them to be produced.”

For more information about performance schedules and tickets for the 2011 Essential Theatre New Play Festival, visit the company’s website at essentialtheatre.com or call 866-811-4111.

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Bert Osborne has written about Atlanta theater for more than 15 years. A former critic with Creative Loafing and The Sunday Paper, he currently reviews theater for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“WaterDream: The Art of Bathroom Design,” which runs June 26 through Sept. 24 at the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA), takes viewers on a stimulating journey through the art and history of bathroom design from the 19th century to the present day. The exhibit explores how bathrooms have evolved from a simple, practical places dedicated to personal hygiene into palaces of peace, luxury and relaxation.

In addition to a timeline of historical bathroom design milestones, WaterDream also features work from influential interior and product designers like Philippe Starck. Axor by Hansgrohe, a European bathroom design company known for its water-conserving fixtures, challenged designers, such as Jean-Marie Massaud, Patricia Uriquiola, and Rowan and Erwan Bourollec, to create eco-friendly “bathrooms of the future,” which also are on display.

In conjunction with the WaterDream exhibit, every Thursday evening from 6 to 8 p.m., the museum will extend its hours for Drink in Design, a reception that features live music, screenings and demonstrations. Drink in Design will begin on Thursday, June 30.

Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and those in the military, and $5 for children aged 17 and under. For more information call 404-979-6455 or visit museumofdesign.org.

After breaking box office records and selling out in record time in 2006 and 2008, WICKED, Broadway’s biggest blockbuster, will return to Atlanta’s Fox Theatre in September as a special to the Broadway Across America – Atlanta 2011-12 season.

Tickets for the return engagement go on sale Saturday, June 11 at 10 a.m. and will be exclusively available at the Fox Theatre Box Office (660 Peachtree Street NE) for a two-hour priority sale. Beginning at 12 p.m., any remaining tickets will be available for purchase at Ticketmaster outlets, online at www.ticketmaster.com/wicked, or by phone at 1-800-982-2787. There is an 8-ticket limit per patron. Orders for groups of 20 or more may be placed by calling 404-881-2000.

With music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Pippin, Academy Award-winner for Pocahontas and The Prince of Egypt) and book by Winnie Holzman (“My So Called Life,” “Once And Again” and “thirtysomething”), WICKED, the untold story of the witches of Oz, is directed by two-time Tony Award winner Joe Mantello (Take Me Out, Love! Valour! Compassion!, The Vagina Monologues) and features musical staging by Tony® Award winner Wayne Cilento (Aida, The Who’s Tommy, How To Succeed…).

Based on the best-selling 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire, WICKED, winner of 35 major awards, including a Grammy® and three Tony® awards, is the untold story of the witches of Oz.

WICKED will play Sept. 14-Oct. 9 at the Fox Theatre. Performances are Tuesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 6:30 p.m. with matinees Saturday at 2 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. Tickets start at $30.

“We are thrilled to welcome WICKED back to Atlanta for a highly-anticipated third engagement,” said Russ Belin, Vice President of Broadway Across America – Atlanta.  “Audiences continue to embrace WICKED, and we are seeing lots of excitement surrounding the tour’s return to Atlanta.”

Long before Dorothy drops in, two other girls meet in the Land of Oz.  One – born with emerald-green skin – is smart, fiery and misunderstood.  The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular.  WICKED tells the story of their remarkable odyssey, and how these two unlikely friends grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good.

WICKED has “cast quite a spell” (Washington Post) throughout North America, breaking box office records in every city that it has played, including Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Philadelphia and Boston to name a few.

Called “a cultural phenomenon” by Variety and named “the defining musical of the decade” by The New York Times, WICKED continues to thrill audiences around the world. There are currently seven productions of WICKED worldwide, including two North American tours, a Broadway production, London production, a Japanese-language production, a German-language production and Australian production.   A Dutch-language production of WICKED will open in November 2011.

WICKED features set design by Tony® Award winner Eugene Lee (Ragtime, Show Boat, Candide, Sweeney Todd), costume design by Tony® winner Susan Hilferty (Into the Woods, Assassins), lighting design by Tony® nominee Kenneth Posner (The Coast of Utopia, Hairspray) and sound design by Tony Meola (The Lion King).  Stephen Oremus is the show’s musical director.  Orchestrations are by William David Brohn, with dance arrangements by James Lynn Abbott.

The Grammy Award-winning cast recording is available on Decca Broadway. For more information, log on to www.wickedthemusical.com.

After breaking box office records and selling out in record time in 2006 and 2008, WICKED, Broadway’s biggest blockbuster, will return to Atlanta’s Fox Theatre in September as a special to the Broadway Across America – Atlanta 2011-12 season.

Tickets for the return engagement go on sale Saturday, June 11 at 10 a.m. and will be exclusively available at the Fox Theatre Box Office (660 Peachtree Street NE) for a two-hour priority sale. Beginning at 12 p.m., any remaining tickets will be available for purchase at Ticketmaster outlets, online at www.ticketmaster.com/wicked, or by phone at 1-800-982-2787. There is an 8-ticket limit per patron. Orders for groups of 20 or more may be placed by calling 404-881-2000.

With music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Pippin, Academy Award-winner for Pocahontas and The Prince of Egypt) and book by Winnie Holzman (“My So Called Life,” “Once And Again” and “thirtysomething”), WICKED, the untold story of the witches of Oz, is directed by two-time Tony Award winner Joe Mantello (Take Me Out, Love! Valour! Compassion!, The Vagina Monologues) and features musical staging by Tony® Award winner Wayne Cilento (Aida, The Who’s Tommy, How To Succeed…).

Based on the best-selling 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire, WICKED, winner of 35 major awards, including a Grammy® and three Tony® awards, is the untold story of the witches of Oz.

WICKED will play Sept. 14-Oct. 9 at the Fox Theatre. Performances are Tuesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 6:30 p.m. with matinees Saturday at 2 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. Tickets start at $30.

“We are thrilled to welcome WICKED back to Atlanta for a highly-anticipated third engagement,” said Russ Belin, Vice President of Broadway Across America – Atlanta.  “Audiences continue to embrace WICKED, and we are seeing lots of excitement surrounding the tour’s return to Atlanta.”

Long before Dorothy drops in, two other girls meet in the Land of Oz.  One – born with emerald-green skin – is smart, fiery and misunderstood.  The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular.  WICKED tells the story of their remarkable odyssey, and how these two unlikely friends grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good.

WICKED has “cast quite a spell” (Washington Post) throughout North America, breaking box office records in every city that it has played, including Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Philadelphia and Boston to name a few.

Called “a cultural phenomenon” by Variety and named “the defining musical of the decade” by The New York Times, WICKED continues to thrill audiences around the world. There are currently seven productions of WICKED worldwide, including two North American tours, a Broadway production, London production, a Japanese-language production, a German-language production and Australian production.   A Dutch-language production of WICKED will open in November 2011.

WICKED features set design by Tony® Award winner Eugene Lee (Ragtime, Show Boat, Candide, Sweeney Todd), costume design by Tony® winner Susan Hilferty (Into the Woods, Assassins), lighting design by Tony® nominee Kenneth Posner (The Coast of Utopia, Hairspray) and sound design by Tony Meola (The Lion King).  Stephen Oremus is the show’s musical director.  Orchestrations are by William David Brohn, with dance arrangements by James Lynn Abbott.

The Grammy Award-winning cast recording is available on Decca Broadway. For more information, log on to www.wickedthemusical.com.

Next time you’re visiting the Woodruff Arts Center you may notice it has a new neighbor: the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA). The only museum in the Southeast devoted exclusively to the study and celebration of all things design, MODA’s mission is to examine how design affects our daily lives through engaging exhibitions, K-12 educational outreach and adult programming.

The museum’s new midtown location is in the Atlanta Public Library building across the street from the High Museum of Art. The space, restored by architects Perkins+Will, features a clean, modern design with environmentally friendly touches such as LED lighting and a water conservation system that collects rainwater from the roof and uses it as (non-potable) gray water. The 9,000-sq. ft. museum has applied for LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council — the highest environmental rating buildings can achieve.

On exhibit through June 13 is “Passione Italiana: Design of the Italian Motorcycle,” which is presented in association with Alabama’s Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum. On display are 11 masterpieces of Italian design from companies such as MV Agusta, Ducati, Bimota and Moto-Morini.

Learn about how some of the world’s most famous architects and designers have created bathrooms that are as functional as they are fashionable at “Water Dream: The Art of Bathroom Design,” which will be on display from June 25 to Sept. 24. The bathrooms on display are designed to conserve water, which the curators hope will inspire an appreciation for how “concepts resonate into realities.”

In addition to exhibits, MODA also presents special events. Every Thursday night from 6 to 8 p.m., the museum stays open late for Drink in Design, a reception that features guest musicians, screenings and demonstrations. MODA’s Design Conversation series welcomes a guest speaker every month. And this summer, campMODA is available for kids ages 6 through 12. The one-week sessions begin on Mondays and run through June and July. At the camp, children are taught the basics of robotics through the use of Legos and the Lego NXT Robotics System.

Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and the military and $5 for children ages 17 and under. Membership levels begin at $40/year and include unlimited admission. For more information, call 404-979-6455 or visit museumofdesign.org.

As part of 2011 Civil Rights Game Week, award-winning Atlanta-based Ludacris and a “special guest” will perform at Turner Field after the 1:10 p.m. Atlanta Braves/Philadelphia Phillies game. The one-hour concert will be free for the game’s ticketholders.

“I’m a fan of baseball and I am honored to be a part of MLB’s family and the tradition of being a pioneering organization for civil rights and social justice and equity,” Ludacris stated. “I have studied the strides made in baseball and in sports and the impact thaey have ad on social issues affecting race and race relations in America. The Civil Rights Game Week is a celebration of those achievements and a reminder of our ongoing responsibility to continue leveling the playing field for all.”

Civil Rights Game Week includes a series of events from May 12-15 designed to pay tribute to all of those who fought on and off the field for equal rights for all Americans. For tickets, visit MLB.com/civilrightsgame.

The Alliance Theatre’s 2011-2012 season promises spectacular theater that shouldn’t be missed by anyone who loves a great story.

“Each production of this season was selected for its capacity to engage the heart, provoke the mind, and take the viewer on a journey that will last far longer than one night,” says Susan V. Booth, the Alliance Theatre’s Jennings Hertz Jr. artistic director.

The 2011-2012 season opens with Stephen Sondheim’s classic Into the Woods. Accompanying the actors onstage will be musicians from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Atlanta Youth Symphony Orchestra. This multigenerational orchestra brings new meaning to the musical’s central theme: “Careful the things you say, children will listen, Careful the things you do, children will see and learn.”

Recognizing that these difficult financial times require experiences that help us laugh and learn, the Alliance will present the world premiere of Janece Shaffer’s biting new comedy Broke and welcome back another Chicago/Atlanta laugh factory colaboration: Sex and the Second City.

Family productions this coming season promise beauty and warmth as the Alliance gifts Atlanta the holiday favorite A Christmas Carol, presents perennial favorite The Wizard of Oz, and creates new musical The Real Tweenagers of Atlanta.

The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls blends a modern tale of one young woman’s journey of self-discovery with the beauty of Russian fairy tales. I Just Stopped By to See the Man wrestles with the tension between where we come from and where we want to go.

As the 2007 Tony Award winner for Best Regional Theatre Company, it is only fitting that the Alliance bring to Atlanta the very best that Broadway has to offer. In 2009, Yamina Reza won the Tony Award for Best new play for God of Carnage. Former Alliance Artistic Associate Director Kent Dash will direct an African American cast in this side-splitting comedy about parents driven to the edge by other parents. And Tony Award winner Tovah Feldshuh will reprise her role as Golda Meir in the one-woman show Golda’s Balcony, proving that sometimes a family can be a whole nation of people.

Last, but not least, the Alliance Theatre will produce the premiere of the suspenseful musical Ghost Brothers of Darkland County,”with a score by John Mellencamp and book by master of horror Stephen King. At once chilling and enlightening, this original musical follows the lives of three generations of the McCandless family as they try and right a wrong from the past in an attempt to preserve the future of their lot.

“The mixture of fairy tales and ghost stories gets at the most primitive and powerful roots of theatre,” Booth says. “This is a wild ride of a season that no one should miss.”

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Thomas Pinckney is a sales executive with Encore Atlanta by day and an avid theatregoer by night. He would like to thank his tie collection for making this article possible.