You don’t have to travel to New York to see quality theater. You may not be aware of it, but Atlanta has a theater scene that rivals many big cities. The number of professional theaters and young, start-up companies here has been attracting recent college graduates for decades. In fact, some of our theatrical institutions, like Dad’s Garage, began with a tight-knit band of recent grads who shared a common dream.

The Suzi Awards are Atlanta’s version of the Tonys. Part of their mission is to promote local theater and reward performances, designs and productions that are of the highest professional caliber. If you’ve never ventured to see anything outside of the Fox, their list of award-winners is a good place to start.

On Monday night, the list of Suzi Award nominees was read. The Alliance Theatre received a total of 30 nominations, Atlanta Lyric Theatre received 21 nods, Horizon Theatre was nominated 19 times, and Aurora Theatre was nominated 16 times. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting videos and stories about the nominees as well as how you can get involved with selecting the winners, who will be announced on Monday, Nov. 7 at the Conant Centre of Oglethorpe University.

Stay tuned …