Looking for something cultural to do in the next week or so? Here’s our select list of recommendations. Pictured (from left) James Donadio and Ellen McQueen in “Milvotchkee, Visconsin,” opening this weekend at Synchronicity Theatre. Photo: KVC Photography
RECOMMENDED
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. TONIGHT-SATURDAY. Maestro Robert Spano opens his 13th season — and the orchestra’s 69th — with the “thirds” of three great composers: Bach’s Third Orchestral Suite, Brahms’ Third Symphony; and Beethoven’s Third Piano Concert (with guest artist Andre Watts, pictured). $24-$75. 8 p.m. Thursday-Friday; 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Symphony Hall, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.733.5000.
Choir Boy. THROUGH OCT. 13. The Alliance Theatre opens its Hertz Stage season with a coming-of-age story by Tarell Alvin McCraney, one of the freshest voices in American theater today — and just this week the winner of a MacArthur genius grant. You may know him as the 2008 winner of the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition for In the Red and Brown Water, his breathtaking exploration of a high school track star forced to make difficult life choices. Choir Boy introduces a young man named Pharus, whose confidence, charisma, clarity of purpose and talent belie the struggle he endures at his all-boys prep school. The drama, told with spirituals, is fresh from London and New York’s Manhattan Theatre Club. Recommended for ages 14 and older. $33-$38. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday; and 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday. 1280 Peachtree St. N.E. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.733.5000. For more on McCraney, read this Encore FEATURE. (Pictured, from left, John Stewart and Jeremy Pope. Photo: Greg Mooney)
Milvotchkee, Visconsin. OPENS FRIDAY | THROUGH OCT. 20. World premiere. Meet Molly. She has a hole in her head. Find out why in this comedy about a tragedy, staged by Synchronicity Theatre. Molly guides us through Wisconsin Concrete Park (a real place) and the vagaries of getting older with a sense of bewilderment and a can-do attitude. The script is by Laura Jacqmin (TV’s “Lucky 7”). Synchronicity was just honored with a 50/50 Applause Award from the International Center for Women Playwrights; this play is its seventh world premiere by a female playwright in six years. The cast: Ellen McQueen as Molly, plus Kelly Criss, James Donadio, Charles Green, Steve Hudson and Holly Stevenson. Patricia Henritze directs. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 5 p.m. Sunday. $15-$45. 14th Street Playhouse (Stage 2), 173 14th St. N.E. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.484.8636. For ticket discounts, visit PoshDealz.com.
OPENING THIS WEEKEND
The Navigator. OPENS TONIGHT | THROUGH OCT. 13. A large-scale, interactive theatrical spectacle for brave children and thrill-seeking adults, based on the young-adult fantasy adventure novel by Eoin McNamee. The Navigator, a 7 Stages production masterminded by associate artistic director Michael Haverty, combines puppetry, video and shadow projection, live performers, music and roving set pieces. Theatergoers will meet Owen, a young boy whose life is upended when time begins to flow backward and his family and friends disappear, and follow him over the grounds of the Goat Farm Arts Center, where he’s caught in great battles, dodges magnetic guns and is chased by giant body puppets. Audience members are blended into the performance, treated as fellow soldiers and friends by the actors. $7-$16. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 7 p.m. Sunday. 1200 Foster St. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.523.7647. For ticket discounts, visit PoshDealz.com.
STILL PLAYING
Harmony. THROUGH OCT. 6. The Alliance Theatre hosts the newest version of this musical from the Barry Manilow-Bruce Sussman writing team. Meet the Comedian Harmonists, six talented young men in 1920s Germany who could harmonize and cut-up with the best of them. They took the world by storm — until Adolf Hitler came to power. The critics: “Highly theatrical and from a technical point of view almost flawless. … But it’s never really that deep, or emotional, save for a few moments near the end” (Jim Farmer, ArtsATL.com); “In the end, a nearly flawless work of art that almost manages to cloak the harrowing underside of history in a bubble of elegance, sophistication and wit” (Wendell Brock, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution); “Although a little fine-tuning here and there is inevitable, this show feels Broadway-bound” (Manning Harris, Atlanta INtown). $30-$75. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday; and 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday. 1280 Peachtree St. N.E. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.733.5000. (Pictured: The cast of Harmony. Photo: Greg Mooney)
Spunk. THROUGH OCT. 13. True Colors Theatre Company offers a compendium of three stories by Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston, adapted by George C. Wolfe and infused with great blues music by Chic Street Man and S. Renee Clark. The critics: “Spunk delivers on its title, offering bold and brassy tales in the key of life” (Andrew Alexander, ArtsATL.com); “A flavorful and fairly irresistible pleasure” (Bert Osborne, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution). $15-$60. 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday. 14th Street Playhouse, 173 14th St. N.E. Details, tickets HERE.
Third Country. THROUGH OCT. 20. This Horizon Theatre world premiere, by Atlanta playwright Suehyla El-Attar, is inspired by real-life events in Clarkston. The story: Nura, a refugee, clings to her soccer ball like a lifeline as she meets Sasha, a resettlement worker who is her guide to a strange new home in a small Southern town named Siddington. The welcome is mixed in this community reeling from a flood of newcomers — all refugees from around the world. “Suehyla El-Attar ambitiously takes on a formidable subject … [but] ultimately, the choice before Sidington’s residents — whether to be more or less accepting — hardly seems a compellingly dramatic or intriguing one” (Andrew Alexander, ArtsATL); $20-$30. 8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday; 3 and 8:30 p.m. Saturday; and 5 p.m. Sunday. 1083 Austin Ave. N.E. (at Euclid Avenue). Details, tickets HERE or at 404.584.7450.
Walter Cronkite Is Dead. THROUGH OCT. 6. Aurora Theatre‘s two-woman comedy features a chatty, blue-collar Southerner and a reserved Washingtonian grounded together at an East Coast airport. What might be possible if people from opposite sides of the aisle could take time to listen, it asks. The play is by Joe Carlarco. The cast: Lane Carlock and Lala Cochran. Brian Clowdus, artistic director at Serenbe Playhouse, directs. The critics: “Make no mistake: Ms. Cochran and Ms. Carlock are superb. In the hands of lesser performers, Cronkite would fall flat as pancake” (Manning Harris, Atlanta INtown). $15. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday. In the Harvel Lab. 128 E. Pike St., Lawrenceville. Free, covered, attached parking available via entrance at 153 E. Crogan St. Details, tickets HERE or at 678.226.6222.
LOOKING AHEAD
Atlanta Black Theatre Festival. OCT. 3-6. The ABTF hosts 40 plays in four days — a mix of dramas, musicals, late-night comedies and solo productions from 18 states and South Africa. The fest include such free events as a Reader’s Theatre series, an Author’s Alley, a speaker’s series, nightly parties and family-friendly workshops. All events take place at the Porter Sanford III Performing Arts Center, 3181 Rainbow Drive, Decatur. For a complete schedule and tickets, go HERE or call 650.440-PLAY. For ticket discounts, visit PoshDealz.com.
ASO world premiere. OCT. 3-5. ASO favorite Garrick Ohlsson plays one of the great late-Romantic piano concertos, Rachmaninov’s Second, the composer’s passionate return after losing his musical voice. The program includes the world premiere of … of shadow and light … by Richard Prior, director of orchestral studies at Emory University, and Adam Schoenberg’s American Symphony. 8 p.m. Thursday-Friday; 7:30 p.m. Saturday. $24-$75. Atlanta Symphony Hall, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.733.5000.
Tosca. OCT. 5, 8, 11 AND 13. The Atlanta Opera opens its season with a production of Giacomo Puccini’s dramatic love triangle. Tomer Zvulun, the company’s new general and artistic director, directs. Sung in Italian with projected English translations. $26-$133. Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, 200 Cobb Galleria Parkway. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.881.8885. For ticket discounts, visit PoshDealz.com.
Urinetown. OPENS OCT. 4 | THROUGH OCT. 20. It’s a privilege to pee! So says Urinetown, the 2001 award-winning Broadway musical that tells a smart, hilarious and pointed tale of greed, corruption, love and revolution in the midst of a serious water shortage. This irreverent musical satire, opening Fabrefaction Theatre Company‘s professional season, is set in a Gotham-like city, where a 20-year drought has led to a government-enforced ban on private toilets. The citizens must pay to use public amenities, regulated by a single malevolent company that profits by charging admission. This little musical, which defied all naysayers on its way to success, paved the way for such shows as Avenue Q, The Book of Mormon and Spamalot. $13-$27. 999 Brady Ave. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.876.9468. For ticket discounts, visit PoshDealz.com. (Pictured: Bart Hansard as Officer Lockstock and Nick Arapoglou as Bobby Strong. Photo: BreeAnne Clowdus)
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Kathy Janich, Encore Atlanta’s managing editor, has been seeing, working in or covering the performing arts for most of her life. Full disclosure: She is affiliated with Synchronicity Theatre and Fabrefaction Theatre Company, both mentioned above. Please email: kathy@encoreatlanta.com.
