Four to put in your plans: “The Prom” at the Alliance and 7 Stages’ dark, offbeat “Threepenny Opera,” plus the openings of “Singles in Agriculture” (Aurora) and the award-winning “Ugly Lies the Bone” (Alliance/Hertz Stage). Pictured: “The Prom” cast, led by Christopher Sieber (on bleachers, from left), Beth Leavel and Brooks Ashmanskas. Photo by Greg Mooney
** Indicates an Encore Atlanta fall season best bet
Recommended
** The Prom. THROUGH SEPT. 25. World premiere. This brand-new, Broadway-bound American musical comedy 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) and Broadway regulars Brooks Ashmanskas, Martin Moran and Christopher Sieber lead the cast. Director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw heads the creative team. The large ensemble of singer/dancers is tireless. $20-$65. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2:30 + 8 p.m. 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”]
The Threepenny Opera. 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. $22.50 + up. 8 p.m. Thursday-Sunday. 1105 Euclid Ave. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.523.7647.
Openings
Singles in Agriculture. OPENS FRIDAY. 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 goat-loving Army widow pursues romance with a fundamentalist dairy farmer. New York critics called Singles “a triumph” and “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, tickets HERE or at 678.226.6222.
Ugly Lies the Bone. IN PREVIEWS | OPENS SEPT. 21. This 2015 drama by Lindsey Ferrentino, which just won the prestigious Kesselring Prize, chronicles one soldier’s journey for physical and emotional healing after 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.
[MORE ON THE KESSELRING PRIZE FOR PLAYWRIGHTS]
This weekend only
** Home Brew. SATURDAY. Free admission to a work-in-progress and free beer from Red Hare Brewing. This ambitious, inventive 7 Stages‘ series begins 2016/17 with Kat-I van Morblue’s solo show Space for Sale, a black comedy with a Brechtian lens pointed at the humor and drama of graffiti art versus advertising. (Two of last year’s Home Brew events — Theroun Patterson’s Red Summer and Tara Ochs’ White Woman in Progress — were season-long highlights.) Free admission. Free beer courtesy of Red Hare Brewing. 2 p.m. 1105 Euclid Ave. N.E. Details HERE or at 404-523-7647.
** The Wholehearted. TONIGHT-SATURDAY. This drama from Stein/Holum Projects combines live performance and larger-than-life video to tell the story of a world champion boxer taken down by her husband and determined to find redemption. “There’s a certain narrative arc that often accompanies stories about female victims of domestic violence,” said WGBH Radio in Boston, “but there’s nothing typical about the storytelling in The Wholehearted.” Stein/Holum is Deborah Stein, a New York-born playwright, director and producer living and working in San Diego, and Suli Holum, a Brooklyn-based performer, playwright, director and choreographer. $26. 7:30 tonight; 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Ferst Center for the Arts at Georgia Tech, 349 Ferst Drive NW. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.894.9600.
Last chance
** In the Heights. CLOSES SUNDAY. Just nominated for 11 Suzi Bass awards, including best musical. This Theatrical Outfit/Aurora Theatre co-production is in the final days of its extended two-venue run. 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. $20-$50. 2:30 + 7:30 p.m. today; 7:30 p.m. Friday; 2:30 + 7:30 p.m. Saturday; and 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Rialto Center for the Arts, 80 Forsyth St. NW. Details, tickets HERE or at 678.528.1500. Discount tickets at PoshDealz.com.
Next week
** Anne Boleyn. OPENS SEPT. 23. 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 head is a different matter. Richard Garner directs. Brooke Owens is Anne Boleyn, Brian Hatch is Henry VIII and James I. $15-$50. 8 p.m. Through Oct. 16. 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.
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. SEPT. 22 + 24. Music Director Robert Spano leads the opening weekend of the Classical Series with pianist Garrick Ohlsson performing Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto. Also planned: Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 and John Adams’ Tromba lontana, part of the ASO’s celebration of Adams’ 70th birthday. $20-$89. 8 nightly. Symphony Hall, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.733.5000.
** Freed Spirits. SEPT. 23-OCT. 30. A world premiere by Atlanta-based playwright Daryl Lisa Fazio. A freak tornado cuts 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. Through Oct. 30. 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.
7 Stages’ production of The Threepenny Opera is a miracle. The ghosts of the Weimar Republic from 1928 Germany come eerily to life. The characters cavort, cheat, fornicate, and sing in a valiant, vain effort to avert the coming darkness (Hitler). The music and ambience are hypnotic; I had never seen it, and I was thrilled and plan to see it again. Thanks for including it in best bets; Lotte Lenya herself would approve.