Atlanta Opera opens its season. We get an all-female “As You Like It.” “Anne Boleyn” is still losing her head at Synchronicity and, in “Freed Spirits” (Horizon), wild things are happening. Plus much more. Pictured: Geoffrey D. Williams as Thurgood Marshall in “Thurgood” at Theatrical Outfit. Photo by Christopher Bartelski.
** Indicates an Encore Atlanta fall season best bet
Recommended
** Anne Boleyn. THROUGH OCT. 16. Regional premiere. Synchronicity Theatre stages a “fresh take on a familiar tale of romance, betrayal and political intrigue.” Devout as she is ambitious, Anne deftly navigates courtly love, lust and lies in this revisionist history. Keeping her head is a different matter. Richard Garner directs. Brooke Owens is Anne Boleyn, Brian Hatch doubles as Henry VIII and 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. THROUGH OCT. 30. A world premiere by Atlanta-based playwright Daryl Lisa Fazio about a freak tornado that cuts through Atlanta’s historic Oakland Cemetery, exposing buried clues and evoking eerie sightings. With Suehyla El-Attar and Bryn Striepe. At Horizon Theatre. 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.
Openings
The Abduction From the Seraglio. OPENS SATURDAY | THROUGH OCT. 16. Four performances only. Atlanta Opera opens its 37th season with Mozart’s comic stew of Turks, sex and farce. Kevin Burdette (the Pirate King in last season’s Pirates of Penzance) returns to play the evil Osmin. $25-$140. 8 p.m. Saturday + Oct. 14; 7:30 Oct. 11; and 3 p.m. Oct. 16. Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, 2800 Cobb Galleria Parkway, Atlanta. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.881.8885. Discount tickets at PoshDealz.com.
As You Like It. OPENS TONIGHT | THROUGH OCT. 29. New York’s Folding Chair Classical Theatre brings its all-female production to 7 Stages, with the help of Atlanta’s Celtic-themed company Arís! Folding Chair features a signature, fast-paced, text-based minimalist style. In As You Like It, seven actors in an empty space play 21 characters using Shakespeare’s words, their bodies and their voices to conjure the tale of love, death, sex, loyalty and betrayal. $18 plus fees. 8 tonight-Saturday, Oct. 13-14 + 26-28; 2 + 8 p.m. Oct 16; 7 p.m. Oct. 19-21 + 29; and 2 p.m. Oct. 22. 7 Stages Back Stage, 1105 Euclid Ave. NE. Details HERE. tickets HERE.
Atlanta Black Theatre Festival. OPENS TONIGHT | THROUGH OCT. 15. This event, in its fifth year, features full-length performances (more than 25), educational workshops, celebrity panels and a readers’ theater series. Most are at Porter Sanford III Performing Arts Center; check the online schedule for other venues. Some events are free; others begin at $7. Porter Sanford is at 3181 Rainbow Drive in Decatur. Details, tickets HERE.
Democracy Achieved. OPENS FRIDAY | THROUGH NOV. 5. Dad’s Garage Theatre Company performs a sketch comedy show that, in its words, is an “ode to the perfection of American politics.” Expect everything from a Joe Biden Dos Equis commercial to Atlanta Street Car sketches that last about as long as their routes, along with Trump and Hillary, of course. Written by Mark Kendall, Kevin Gillese, Linnea Frye and Matt Horgan. $12.50-$20.50 (you save if you buy online). 8 nightly. 569 Ezzard St. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.523.3141.
This weekend only
The Atlanta Plays: Little Five Points. SATURDAY-SUNDAY. Found Stages Theatre Company introduces a new form of immersive theater with its inaugural “podplay,” a downloadable immersive play designed for listening while at a specific site. The piece runs twice each hour on the hour and half-hour. Free. 3-7 p.m. Saturday 2-6 p.m. Sunday. A smart phone and earbuds are required to take part. Reserve your free ticket HERE. RSVP to reserve your spot HERE.
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. TONIGHT + SATURDAY. Music director Robert Spano conducts John Adams’ The Chairman Dances, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 and Mozart’s royal Piano Concerto No. 22 with Bosnian pianist Pedja Muzijevic. $20-$79. 8 nightly. Symphony Hall, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.733.5000.
Last chance
La Cucarachita Martina. CLOSES SUNDAY. When Martina discovers a penny and buys a tin of face powder, everyone wants to marry her. What she really wants is friendship, kindness, thoughtfulness and sharing. This production from New York’s Teatro SEA, based on a well-known Puerto Rican and Cuban children’s tale, is told with tabletop, rod and body puppets to a Latin rock score. In English and Spanish. For ages 4+. $10.25 for Center for Puppetry Arts members; $20.50 nonmembers. 10 + 11:30 a.m. Wednesday-Friday; noon + 2 p.m. Saturday; 1 + 3 p.m. Sunday. 1404 Spring St. NW. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.873.3391.
Singles in Agriculture. CLOSES SUNDAY. 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 final night of an annual dating convention for single farmers, where romance might be brewing between a goat-loving Army widow and a fundamentalist dairy farmer. There is, in fact, a real dating service called Singles in Agriculture. $20-$30. 8 tonight-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. CLOSES SUNDAY. This 2015 drama by Lindsey Ferrentino chronicles one soldier’s journey for physical and emotional healing after a traumatic injury in Afghanistan. Ferrentino is a two-time Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition finalist (look for her Moonlight on the Bayou in February). On the Alliance Theatre’s Hertz Stage. Recommended for age 15+. $15 and up. 7:30 tonight; 8 p.m. Friday; 2:30 + 8 p.m. Saturday; and 2:30 + 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.733.5000. Discount tickets at PoshDealz.com.
[INTERVIEW: BLAST OFF WITH THE AWARD-WINNING PLAYWRIGHT]
Still running
The Sleepy Hollow Experience. THROUGH NOV. 6. Ichabod Crane, Brom Bones and the Headless Horseman return to Serenbe Playhouse for a fourth season of ghoulishly good fun amid the trees and shadows. Note: This is a traveling performance without seating, but chairs can be provided by request through the box office. $20-$30. 8 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday + Sunday; 8 + 10:30 p.m. Friday; 8 + 10:30 p.m. Oct. 15. The Horseman’s Meadow at Serenbe, 10950 Hutchesons Ferry Road, Chattahoochee Hills. Details, tickets HERE or at 770.463.1110. Discount tickets at PoshDealz.com.
Thurgood. THROUGH OCT. 16. Geoffrey D. Williams is Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993), the first African-American justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. This one-man show at Theatrical Outfit follows Marshall from back-alley Baltimore to Howard University, from his fight for equality in the South to a seat on the highest court in the land, to his victorious challenge of segregation in the famous Brown vs. Board of Education case. Eric J. Little directs. $20-$50. 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Also at 11 a.m. Oct. 6 and 2:30 p.m. Oct. 8 + 15. 100 Luckie St. NW. Details, tickets HERE or at 678.528.1500.
Women in Jeopardy. THROUGH OCT. 23. Southeastern premiere. Aurora Theatre brings Wendy MacLeod’s flirtatious 2015 comedy to life, a piece that follows the happenings of two middle-aged women who trade their wineglasses for spyglasses. Imagine Thelma & Louise meets The First Wives Club. $20-$55. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; 2:30 + 8 p.m. Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday. $16 + up for 10 a.m. show Oct. 19. 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.
Next week
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. OCT. 13 + 15 ONLY. The first concert in the ASO’s Modern Masters series, which focuses on work created in the last century, has a decidedly American twist. It features John Adams’ Lollapalooza, George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F and Aaron Copland’s Symphony No. 3. Russian pianist Denis Kozhukhin makes his ASO debut on the Gershwin. American conductor Hugh Wolff, music director of the Belgium National Orchestra, is on the podium. $20-$49. Symphony Hall, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.733.5000.
The Ghastly Dreadfuls. OPENS OCT. 12 | THROUGH OCT. 29. Something for grown-ups at the Center for Puppetry Arts. This seasonal spooktacular by master storytellers Jon Ludwig and Jason Hines turns 10 as its almost-humans and various puppets portray a motley band of specters celebrating Halloween with creepy stories, frightful songs and devilish dances. Recommended for ages 18+. $25. 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday. 1404 Spring St. NW. Details HERE. Tickets HERE or at 404.873.3391.
The Jungle Book: The Story of Mowgli’s Fire. OPENS OCT. 12 | THROUGH OCT. 23. The Center for Puppetry Arts hosts Cincinnati-based Frisch Marionettes and its musical about the boy stolen from his mother at birth, how he finds a home among jungle animals and how he must eventually face an evil tiger. Based on the Rudyard Kipling stories and told with marionette and shadow puppets. For age 4+. Members $10.25; nonmembers $20.50. At 10 + 11:30 a.m. Wednesday-Friday; noon + 2 p.m. Saturday; and 1 + 3 p.m. Sunday. 1404 Spring St. NW. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.873.3391.
** Moby Dick. PREVIEWS BEGIN OCT. 12 | OPENS OCT. 19. The Alliance Theatre presents Lookingglass Theatre’s high-flying adaptation of Herman Melville’s 1851 novel. Bold trapeze and acrobatic work turn this seafaring American classic into a gravity-defying experiment in aerial storytelling. You might remember Chicago’s Lookingglass from its first visit at the Alliance in 2010 with Lookingglass Alice. $20 and up. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2:30 + 8 p.m. Saturday; and 2:30 + 7:30 p.m. Sunday (no 2:30 p.m. show Oct. 15; no 7:30 p.m. show Oct. 30). Details, tickets HERE or at 404.733.5000.
[READ MORE: HOW THIS WHALE OF A TALE CAME TO BE]
