We’re sorry and grateful to say goodbye to “Company” (Actor’s Express, (closing Sunday with, from left, Laura Floyd Wood, Phillip Lynch, Dan Ford, Lowrey Brown, Rhyn Saver, Jill Hames and Daniel Burns). Also, “The Prom” (Alliance) continues, Serenbe makes “Art” and 7 Stages opens “The Threepenney Opera.” (Note: The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s one-night season-opening concert with violinist Joshua Bell on Sept. 15 is sold out.) Photo by BreeAnne Clowdus.
** Indicates an Encore Atlanta fall season best bet
Recommended
** Company. LAST CHANCE | CLOSES SUNDAY. Actor’s Express has opened its 29th season in solid, sometimes spectacular, fashion with this 1971 Tony Award-winning Stephen Sondheim hit. It centers around Bobby (Lowrey Brown) a single New Yorker turning 35 and confronting bachelorhood in a series of funny-sad-awkward vignettes with his meddling married friends. The ensemble is strong, with nimble movement and powerhouse vocals. Our favorite: Jessic Miesel as the erratic, hilarious Amy. $28 + up. 8 tonight-Friday; 2 + 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. 887 W. Marietta St. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.607.7469. Discount tickets at PoshDealz.com.
[VIDEO: PHONE RINGS, DOOR CHIMES, IN COMES ”COMPANY”]
** The Prom. THROUGH SEPT. 25. World premiere. This brand-new, Broadway-bound American musical comedy is creating quite a buzz. The show tells the story of a young lesbian couple, a canceled high-school prom and a group of aging Broadway celebs who drop in to … help. Tony Award winner Beth Leavel (The Drowsy Chaperone) leads the cast. Director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw leads the creative team. His last Alliance Theatre effort (Tuck Everlasting) closed quickly on Broadway, but his record (The Drowsy Chaperone, Aladdin, The Book of Mormon, Something Rotten!) speaks for itself. $20-$65. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday; 2:30 + 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Alliance mainstage, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.733.5000.
[VIDEO: THE “PROM” CAST REHEARSES “YOU HAPPENED”]
Openings
** In the Heights. IN PREVIEWS | OPENS SATURDAY. This Theatrical Outfit/Aurora Theatre co-production moves intown to Georgia State’s Rialto Center for the Arts. The 2007 Tony Award-winning musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda is set in New York City’s Washington Heights, where the corner bodega serves coffee light and sweet, the windows are always open and change is in the air. Through Sept. 18. $20-$50. 7:30 p.m. Sept. 8-9, 14, 16 + 18; 2:30 p.m. Sept. 10-11; 2:30 + 7:30 p.m. Sept. 15 + 17. The Rialto is at 80 Forsyth St. NW. Details, tickets HERE or at 678.528.1500. Discount tickets at PoshDealz.com.
The Threepenny Opera. OPENS FRIDAY | THROUGH SEPT. 25. Note the short run and don’t dally. A raw musical about power, sex and the evil things one must do to stay alive in a corrupt world. The score includes the iconic “Mack the Knife” along with “Pirate Jenny” and “How to Survive.” Threepenny draws its inspiration from German expressionist cinema and dates to 1928, when playwright Bertolt Brecht (book and lyrics) and composer Kurt Weill were at their peak. Associate artistic director Michael Haverty directs this 38th season opener at 7 Stages. Bryan Mercer is music director. Expect live musicians and a dark, twisty tale. $22.50 + up. 8 p.m. Thursday-Sunday. 1105 Euclid Ave. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.523.7647.
This weekend only
** Art. TONIGHT-SUNDAY. Part of Serenbe Playhouse‘s Intimate Indoors series. The venue makes the case for seeing this 1998 Tony Award-winning three-hander by Yasmina Reza. Art and friendship collide when one among a trio of pals purchases an all-white canvas. Serenbe, which normally performs outdoors in Chattahoochee Hills, tucks this second show of its indoor series into the Atlanta Contemporary in West Midtown. The cast: Adam Fristoe, Daniel Parvis and Daviorr Snipes. $25. 8 tonight-Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. 535 Means St. NW. Details, tickets HERE or at 770.463.1110.
cloth {field}. THROUGH SUNDAY. Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Music Director Robert Spano and glo Atlanta dance-maker Lauri Stallings collaborate for a third time, combining new music with contemporary dance. This time they expand cloth, first written by Spano for glo in 2014. $25; $50 special reserved, plus fees. 8:30 nightly. Goodson Yard Factory Space at the Goat Farm Arts Center, 1200 Foster St. in West Midtown. Details HERE. Tickets HERE.
Last chance
Old MacDonald’s Farm. CLOSES SUNDAY. A Theater for the Very Young production at the Center for Puppetry Arts (best for ages 2+). This interactive show takes place during a day in the life of a farm, with more than a dozen animal puppets and two farmhand-puppeteers. $20.50. 10 + 11:30 a.m. Thursday-Friday; 11 a.m., 1 + 3 p.m. Saturday; and 1 + 3 p.m. Sunday. 1404 Spring St. NW. Details, tickets HERE.
Next week
Singles in Agriculture. OPENS SEPT. 16. This 2015 comedy by Abby Rosebrock, a South Carolina-born, New York-based playwright/actor, is the first of five shows in Aurora Theatre‘s intimate Harvel Lab Series. Singles happens in a Texas hotel room on the last night of an annual dating convention for single farmers, where a pygmy-goat-loving Army widow pursues romance with a fundamentalist dairy farmer. New York critics called Singles “a triumph,” and that “Rosebrock and her collaborators achieve a sexy, startling and ultimately uplifting piece of theater.” There is, in fact, a real dating service called Singles in Agriculture. Justin Anderson, Aurora’s associate artistic director, directs. The cast: Jeremy Aggers, Lauren Boyd and Vallea Woodbury. Through Oct. 9. $20-$30. 8 p.m. Thursday-Friday; 2:30 + 8 p.m. Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday. 128 E. Pike St., Lawrenceville. Free, covered, attached parking in city of Lawrenceville deck at 153 E. Crogan St. Details HERE or at 678.226.6222.
Ugly Lies the Bone. PREVIEWS BEGIN SEPT. 16 | OPENS SEPT. 21. This 2015 drama by Lindsey Ferrentino chronicles one soldier’s journey for physical and emotional healing following a traumatic injury in Afghanistan. It opens the Alliance Theatre’s Hertz Stage season. Ferrentino is a two-time Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition finalist (Magic Man in 2014, Moonlight on the Bayou in February 2017). Jessica Holt (Significant Other at Actor’s Express) directs a cast comprising Hugh Adams, Julie Jesneck, Megan McFarland, Wendy Melkonian and Lee Osorio). Recommended for age 15+. $15 and up. Through Oct. 9. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2:30 + 8 p.m. Saturday; and 2:30 + 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Alliance Theatre, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.733.5000.
Coming up
** Anne Boleyn. OPENS SEPT. 23 | THROUGH OCT. 16. Regional premiere. Synchronicity Theatre bills its season opener as a “fresh, tantalizing take on a familiar tale of romance, betrayal and political intrigue.” Devout as she is ambitious, Anne navigates courtly love, lust and lies in this revisionist history, securing her marriage to King Henry VIII and a Protestant reformation. Keeping her crown — and her head — is a different matter. Richard Garner directs. Brooke Owens is Anne Boleyn, Brian Hatch is Henry VIII / James I. $15-$50. 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; 5 p.m. Sunday. Synchronicity Theatre at Peachtree Pointe, 1545 Peachtree St. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.484.8636.
** Freed Spirits. SEPT. 23-OCT. 30. A world premiere by Atlanta-based playwright Daryl Lisa Fazio. A freak tornado cuts a swath through Atlanta’s historic Oakland Cemetery, exposing buried clues and evoking eerie sightings. Tour guide Susan McKinley (Suehyla El-Attar) and steampunk survivalist MJ Bell (Bryn Striepe) unite with a geeky spirit photographer and a retired pathologist to solve the mystery. The Horizon Theatre cast includes Jimmica Collins, Marguerite Hannah, Jonathan Horne and Spencer Miller. $25 and up. 8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday; 3 + 8:30 p.m. Saturday; and 5 p.m. Sunday. 1083 Austin Ave. NE (at Euclid Avenue). Details, tickets HERE or at 404.584.7450.
