Opening this week are “The Comedy of Errors” (Shakespeare Tavern), “The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told” (Out Front Theatre) and Atlanta Opera’s “Turandot.” Say goodbye to “Nobody Loves You” (Horizon) and “Pais de Bicicleta (Bicycle Country)” at Aurora. Pictured: Ty Autry and Brian Jordan in Out Front’s “Fabulous.” Photo by Brian Wallenberg.
** Indicates an Encore Atlanta winter/spring season recommendation.
This week only
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. SATURDAY ONLY. Russian conductor Vasily Petrenko and Canadian pianist Stewart Goodyear join the ASO for Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Also planned: Richard Strauss’ tone poem Don Juan and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8. $20-$89. 8 p.m. Symphony Hall, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.733.5000.
Opening this week
The Comedy of Errors. IN PREVIEWS | OPENS SATURDAY. The Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse tells the tale of the merchant twins Antipholus (Enoch King, Andrew Houchins) and the servant twins Dromio (Matt Felten, J.L. Reed), a slap-happy story of mayhem, merriment and, yes, errors. $15 preview tonight; $20 preview Friday. Regularly $28-$39. Through May 21. 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 6:30 p.m. Sunday. 499 Peachtree St. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.874.5299.
The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told. OPENS TONIGHT. Out Front Theatre Company ends its inaugural season with this 1998 Paul Rudnick comedy inspired by the fundamentalist remark, “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” In Rudnick’s revisionist version of the Old Testament, God makes Adam and Steve, along with Jane and Mabel, the first lesbians. The foursome navigates the centuries together, encountering the gay animals on Noah’s Ark, a lesbian rabbi and a flamboyant pharaoh. The historical pageant eventually lands in present-day Manhattan. Founder/artistic director Paul Conroy directs. His cast includes Ty Autry, Brian Jordan, Jenni McCarthy and Ellie Stryon. $15-$25. Through May 14. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday. 999 Brady Ave. in West Midtown. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.448.2755. Discount tickets at PoshDealz.com.
Turandot. OPENS SATURDAY. Puccini’s epic opera centers around the Princess Turandot, who decapitates each suitor who fails to answer her riddles. When the character Calaf falls in love with her, he wins her ghastly game and proposes a riddle of his own. Italian tenor Gianluca Terranova, who made his Atlanta Opera debut as Rodolfo in La bohème, sings the role of Calaf for the first time. In Italian with English supertitles. $45-$151. Performances at 8 p.m. Saturday and May 5; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday; and 3 p.m. May 7. Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, 2800 Cobb Galleria Parkway, Atlanta. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.881.8885. Discount tickets at PoshDealz.com.
[MORE: LEARN THE RIDDLE INSIDE THE RIDDLE OF ‘TURANDOT’]
Last chance
Nobody Loves You. CLOSES SUNDAY. At Horizon Theatre. The game of love is on in this musical about modern relationships and cluelessly self-obsessed contestants who compete for romance and adoring fans on a reality-TV show. Director Heidi Cline McKerley’s cast includes Leslie Bellair, Jeanette Illidge, Wendy Melkonian and Brad Raymond, among others. Music direction by Alli Lingenfelter. The pop-flavored score comes from Itamar Moses and Gaby Alter. The musical had its world premiere at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre in May 2012. $25-$40. 8 tonight-Friday; 3 + 8:30 p.m. Saturday; and 5 p.m. Sunday. 1083 Euclid Ave. NE (at Austin Avenue). Details, tickets HERE or at 404.584.7450.
** Pais de Bicicleta (Bicycle Country). CLOSES SUNDAY. At Aurora Theatre. This Spanish-language production for all audiences follows three refugees with a lust for freedom as they try to make it across the sea from Havana to Miami. The script is by Nilo Cruz (last season’s Sotto Voce, a Pulitzer Prize winner for Anna in the Tropics). It mixes magic realism, whip-fast dialogue, and Latin music and dance. With English supertitles. $20-$30. 8 tonight-Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Free, covered, attached parking in city deck at 153 E. Crogan St. Details, tickets HERE or at 678.226.6222.
Still running
Pete the Cat. THROUGH MAY 21. Premiere. The Center for Puppetry Arts stages an all-new production based on the book series by Georgia artist James Dean. Welcome to the imagined adventures of the scrawny black kitten that Dean adopted in 1999. With marionette, rod and shadow puppets. Artistic director Jon Ludwig wrote the adaptation and directs. The cast: Luis Hernandez, Amy Sweeney, Tim Sweeney, Anna Claire Walker and puppeteer/composer Dolph Amick, who wrote the original music. $20.50 nonmembers; $10.25 members. 10 + 11:30 a.m. Tuesday-Friday; noon + 2 p.m. Saturday; and 1 + 3 p.m. Sunday. 1404 Spring St. NW. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.873.3391.
Next week
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. MAY 4 + 6. Frequent guest conductor Nicholas McGegan returns to lead a program celebrating the musical capitals of Vienna, Paris and London. The lineup: Mozart’s A Little Night Music; Rameau’s Suite from Les Indes galantes; and Haydn’s Symphony No. 104, London. McGegan, a Brit, has been called “one of the finest baroque conductors of his generation” (The Independent) and “an expert in 18th-century style” (The New Yorker). $20-$89. 8 nightly. Symphony Hall, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.733.5000.
Curious Queer Encounters. MAY 4-14. 7 Stages’ annual interactive theater festival features seven local ensembles/artists creating original performances hidden in and around the Little Five Points theater space. This year, they represent and redefine queer culture. The event is curated by co-artistic director Michael Haverty and includes such artists as Jared Dawson, Jed Drummond, Corian Ellisor, Jim Grimsley, Heidi S. Howard, Jason Livingston, Rebecca Makus, Matthew Terrell and Jessica Unker. Note: Includes nudity and flashing lights. $22.50 and up. 7 p.m. Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday; and 2 p.m. Sunday. 1105 Euclid Ave. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 404-523-7647.
** The Heath. MAY 4-5 ONLY. At Synchronicity Theatre. Decatur-born, San Francisco-based playwright Lauren Gunderson performs her one-woman piece, describing it as “kinda like a Shakespeare hoedown that might make you cry.” In this new, deeply personal bluegrass musical, Gunderson weaves family lore and Shakespeare’s King Lear into a piece about mortality, madness and regret while celebrating life, music and the power of a good story. Part of Synchronicity’s new Spark Series. $25-$40. 8 nightly. One Peachtree Pointe building, 1545 Peachtree St. NE. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.992.3272.
** Split in Three. MAY 4-28. This new comic-drama from Atlanta playwright Daryl Lisa Fazio is set in 1969 Mississippi as the Supreme Court forces the last segregated school system to integrate. Two sisters are caught in the national crossfire, especially when their long-lost Northern half-sister hits town. Split in Three had its world premiere in spring 2015 at Florida Repertory Theatre. “The results,” the Fort Myers News-Press said, “are haunting, funny, heartbreaking and deeply satisfying.” Aurora’s associate artistic director Justin Anderson again directs. The cast is led by Courtney Patterson, Falashay Pearson and Rhyn McLemore Saver. $20-$55. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; 2:30 + 8 p.m. Saturday; and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. 128 E. Pike St. in Lawrenceville. Free, covered, attached parking in city deck at 153 E. Crogan St. Details, tickets HERE or at 678.226.6222.
Coming up
** Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3). MAY 10-JUNE 11. At Actor’s Express. Suzan-Lori Parks’ 2015 Pulitzer Prize finalist resets Homer’s epic Greek poem The Odyssey during the American Civil War. In this trilogy, a slave named Homer — in exchange for a promise of freedom — follows his master into battle for the Confederacy. Parks, who won the 2002 Pulitzer for Topdog/Underdog, here examines what it means to be free and what it means to be true. Father, which won off-Broadway’s 2015 Obie Award for Playwriting, is one of the most celebrated plays of the past decade. Martin Damien Wilkins directs. Evan Cleaver plays Hero. $22 and up. 8 p.m. May 10 (Director’s Rough Cut); 8 p.m. May 11-12 (previews). Opens at 8 p.m. May 13. Regularly at 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. At the King Plow Arts Center in West Midtown, 887 West Marietta St. NW. Details, tickets HERE or at 404.607.7469. Discount tickets at PoshDealz.com.
