Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is in town until Sunday; “Too Heavy for Your Pocket” continues its world premiere run at the Alliance; “Having Our Say” opens at Georgia Ensemble. Plus. Much. More. Note: Tony Bennett’s Tuesday concert at Symphony Hall is sold out. Pictured: The Ailey company performing “Revelations.” Photo by Christopher Duggan.
** Indicates an Encore Atlanta winter season recommendation.
Recommended
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. THROUGH SUNDAY. The storied New York company makes its annual Atlanta pilgrimage. The lineup varies from performance to performance and includes r-Evolution, Dream, a new piece choreographed by Ailey dancer Hope Boykin, and the famous Revelations. Boykin’s piece began with her visit to the Center for Civil and Human Rights in downtown Atlanta on a previous visit. $21.50-$75.50. 8 tonight-Friday; 2 + 8 p.m. Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 855.285.8499.
[MORE: MLK’S WORDS INSPIRE NEW PIECE FOR AILEY COMPANY]
** The Crucible. CLOSES SUNDAY. Tickets are scarce as this staging ends its run. The witching hour is at hand in the tight-knit community of Salem, where personal vendettas collide with lust and superstition. Do witches walk among us, or has revenge created a monster? Arthur Miller’s American classic, written in response to McCarthyism in the 1950s, is as frighteningly timely as ever. Actor’s Express gives it a vivid, unsettling staging. $20-$40. 8 tonight-Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. King Plow Arts Center, 887 W. Marietta St. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.607.7469.
** Too Heavy for Your Pocket. THROUGH FEB. 26. This Alliance Theatre world premiere is the 2017 winner of the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition. Jiréh Breon Holder’s script, set in 1961 Nashville, follows two couples struggling with life, love and responsibilities in the era of Freedom Riders. Holder, a Memphis native and Morehouse College grad, earned his M.F.A. in playwriting from the Yale School of Drama and is working at Emory University as a playwriting fellow. Recommended for ages 13 and up. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2:30 + 8 p.m. Saturday; 2:30 + 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Hertz Stage, Alliance Theatre, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.733.5000.
[‘I THINK THEATER IS THE NEW CHURCH,’ SAYS THE PLAYWRIGHT]
This weekend only
And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank. SUNDAY ONLY. Georgia Ensemble Theatre celebrates the 20th season of this touring school production with a public performance and conversation with Anne’s childhood friend Eva Schloss, now 87 and traveling from London for the event. $10. 6:30 p.m. GET performs at the Roswell Cultural Arts Center, 950 Forrest St., Roswell. Details, tickets HERE or at 770.641.1260.
Opening this weekend
** Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years. OPENS TONIGHT. At Georgia Ensemble Theatre. This oral history by Sadie and Bessie Delany began as a 1993 work of nonfiction, a New York Times best-seller, no less. In 1995 it was adapted for the stage. In 1999, the stage version became an award-winning TV adaptation. The sisters were the daughters of a former slave who became the first African-American elected bishop in the U.S. Episcopal Church. They were civil rights pioneers, but their stories were largely unknown until a reporter interviewed them for a 1991 feature story. Andrea Frye directs. $26 and up. Through March 5. 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Also at 4 p.m. Feb. 25 + March 4. GET performs at the Roswell Cultural Arts Center, 950 Forrest St., Roswell. Details, tickets HERE or at 770.641.1260.
Last chance
U Up? CLOSES FRIDAY. This world premiere at Dad’s Garage Theatre Company satirizes love in the digital age, from first dates and awkward music choices, to late-night booty calls and sexting. The two-person show was created by Mark Kendall and Alison Hastings, who co-star. $12.50-$20.50 plus taxes (cheapest online); add $7 for reserved “Fancy Pants” seats. 8 tonight-Friday. 569 Ezzard St. (behind Thumbs Up diner). Details, tickets HERE or at 404.523.3141.
Still running
Constellations. THROUGH FEB. 26. Horizon Theatre launches its 2017 season with this romantic adventure by British playwright Nick Payne. Roland (Enoch King) knows a lot about bees and honey. Marianne (Bethany Irby) would be comfortable in a room with Einstein. The probability of them meeting is slim to none. Yet in the multiverse, the possibilities of a single moment are infinite. $25-$40. 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.
** A Kid Like Jake. THROUGH FEB. 26. Out Front Theatre, which focuses on work about the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intergender and allied community, is in its first season, likely with some wrinkles to work out. Still, Jake is an intriguing title. It features a New York City couple seeking the best private school for their precocious 4-year-old son. What makes Jake special — a lack of conformity and a passion for Cinderella dress-up — also causes conflict. The Daniel Pearle drama became a New York Times Critics’ Pick during its 2013 premiere at Lincoln Center Theater. $15-$25. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday. Out Front performs at the former Fabrefaction Theatre space, 999 Brady Ave. in West Midtown. Details, tickets HERE. Mini-season tickets at PoshDealz.com.
Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Seminar. THROUGH FEB. 26. Theatrical Outfit and Dad’s Garage Theatre Company partner on this stage version of Walker Percy’s best-selling personal improvement book. Both ask: If Earthlings zoomed to a planet with intelligent life, would the inhabitants let us land or label us a threat to a more-evolved universe? Dad’s artistic director Kevin Gillese directs a great cast: Bart Hansard, Amber Nash, Tara Ochs, Gina Rickicki and Dan Triandiflou. $20-$50. 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday; 2:30 + 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday. 84 Luckie St. NW. Details, tickets HERE or at 678.528.1500.
Million Dollar Quartet. THROUGH FEB. 26. Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins jam again in this 2010 musical based on the quartet’s legendary Sun Records session in Memphis on Dec. 4, 1956. The 90-minute show, a co-production (Atlanta Lyric and Georgia Ensemble theaters), features wall-to-wall classics — “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Fever,” “Sixteen Tons,” “Long Tall Sally,” “I Walk the Line,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “Hound Dog” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” among them. The cast: Chris Damiano as Johnny Cash, Chase Peacock (Serenbe’s Miss Saigon) as Elvis, Christopher Kent as Carl Perkins and Ethan Ray Parker as Jerry Lee Lewis. $33-$58. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Jennie T. Anderson Theatre, Cobb County Civic Center, 548 S. Marietta Parkway, Marietta. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.377.9948. Discount tickets at PoshDealz.com.
** The One and Only Ivan. THROUGH FEB. 26. You might remember Ivan the mighty silverback from his time at Zoo Atlanta. Katherine Applegate’s 2013 Newbery Medal-winning novel, the basis for this script, revisits his 27 years in a tight glass-and-concrete cage in a Tacoma, Wash., shopping center. Synchronicity Theatre‘s staging uses actors who bring the animals — Ivan, elephants Stella and Ruby, and a dog named Bob — to life through movement, headpieces, masks, costumes and puppetry. Part of Synchronicity’s Family Series. $15-$22. 7 p.m. Friday (free cookies and milk for kids in PJs); 1 + 4 p.m. Saturday; 2 + 5 p.m. Sunday. One Peachtree Pointe, 1545 Peachtree St. NE in Midtown. Tickets, details HERE or at 404.484.8636.
** Sweep. THROUGH MARCH 5. This femme-fantasy story by up-and-coming Latina playwright Georgina H. Escobar sounds like a kick. Her adventure — receiving its world premiere at Aurora Theatre — follows two sisters trying to reset history’s imperfections by hunting biblical and modern-day targets through alternate realities. Runs 90 minutes with no intermission. $20-$30. 8 p.m. Thursday-Friday; 2:30 + 8 p.m. Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday. In Aurora’s Harvel Lab, 28 E. Pike St., Lawrenceville. Free, covered and attached parking in city deck at 153 E. Crogan St. Details, tickets HERE or at 678.226.6222.
Next week
Exit Strategy. OPENS TUESDAY. At True Colors Theatre Company. The Chicago Tribune called playwright Ike Holter, the man behind this script, one of the “most exciting young writers in the city.” It also named him Chicagoan of the Year in Theater in 2014. This drama, about a public school facing closure, seems simple, but it’s not. “A lot of people expect things from me when it comes to race, but I don’t just write black characters,” says Holter, who’s in his early 30s. The True Colors cast includes Matthew Busch (The Thrush & and the Woodpecker at Actor’s Express), Tess Malis Kincaid, William S. Murphey and Diany Rodriguez, among others. $20-$50. 8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday; 2:30 + 8 p.m. Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday. True Colors performs at the Southwest Arts Center, 915 New Hope Road, Atlanta. Details, tickets HERE or at 877.725.8849.
Libby at the Express. FEB. 23-26. Singer extraordinaire Libby Whittemore is joined by Shawn Megorden, Wendy Melkonian and Lisa Paige and backed by Robert Strickland and his Super-Sized Combo for a program titled Love Songs & Power Ballads. You’ll hear pop and rock, Broadway and the Great American Songbook. $44 and up. 7:30 nightly. Actor’s Express at the King Plow Arts Center, 887 West Marietta St. NW. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.607.7469.
** The Temple Bombing. IN PREVIEWS WEDNESDAY | OPENS FEB. 28. World premiere. Although this script is set firmly in Atlanta — it deals with the October 1958 explosion at the city’s oldest synagogue — the project rests with New York’s Tectonic Theater Project and is inspired by Melissa Fay Greene’s award-winning book. The Temple’s Rabbi Rothschild became a public advocate for civil rights after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case. The explosion and national support for the Temple community toughened Atlanta city leaders’ resolve to investigate and prosecute the crime, leading the way to dramatic social change. The script is by Tectonic company member Jimmy Maize, who directs. His cast includes Danielle Deadwyler, Ann Marie Gideon, Eric Mendenall, Lee Osorio, Ric Reitz and Minka Wiltz. $20-$72. Through March 12. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2:30 + 8 p.m. Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Alliance mainstage, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.733.5000. Note: Contains adult situations. Recommended for ages 13 and up.
