Phylicia Rashad and Kenny Leon will go toe-to-toe in Same Time, Next Year to wrap the three-show 2013-14 season at True Colors Theatre Company. To make the production even more enticing, Actor’s Express co-founder Chris Coleman, now artistic director at Portland (Ore.) Center Stage, returns to direct.
Two of the three shows will be performed at the 14th Street Playhouse in Midtown, the third at the Southwest Arts Center. The details:
SPUNK. Sept. 17-Oct. 13. The verdant, earthy language of Zora Neale Hurston is animated by blues music in three tales of love, revenge and redemption. Blues artist Chic Street Man provides musical narration. Award-winning director-producer-writer George C. Wolfe adapted the Hurston stories. Hilda Willis, True Colors’ education consultant, directs. At the 14th Street Playhouse in Midtown.
RACE. Feb. 25-March 23, 2014. Two high-profile lawyers — one black, one white — are called to defend a wealthy white client charged with the rape of an African- American woman in this 2009 script by Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet. When a new legal assistant gets involved, opinions boiling beneath explode to the surface. The Chicago Tribune called the drama “intellectually salacious.” John Dillon directs. Contains adult language. At the Southwest Arts Center.
SAME TIME, NEXT YEAR. In Bernard Slade’s gentle comedy, Doris and George are married to other people when they meet by chance on separate business trips in 1951. They agree to rendezvous each year in the same place, finding a connection that sees them through 25 years of love, loss, joy, conflict and friendship. Rashad (at right, with Leon) won a 2004 Tony Award for her work in the Leon-directed A Raisin in the Sun. They also worked together as actor-director in August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean and on the 2012 TV remake of Steel Magnolias. Leon, of course, is the co-founding artistic director of True Colors and, arguably, the biggest theater celebrity Atlanta has.
True Colors’ three-play flex subscriptions are $85 and on sale now and available HERE or at 1.877.725.8849. Single tickets will go on sale later.
Shakin’ the Rafters follows the gospel-singing Davis Sisters on a tour of the South during the era of Jim Crow. The cast includes Chandra Currelley, Javeres Myricks, Latrice Pace, Adrienne Reynolds, D. Woods and LaParee Young. Tickets are $20-$35. All seats are $20 July 9-10 but are selling fast. Get yours HERE or at 1.877.725.8849.
