Offscript - Setting the dates
An advance look at theater in the new year
Like school years, most theatrical seasons follow the tradition of beginning in the fall and ending at the onset of summer. A few companies stick to the regular calendar and have announced their new lineups, most notably Little Five Points’ Horizon Theatre.
Two of the upcoming shows in the company’s 23rd season look a little familiar. Actress Shelby Hofer reprises Bad Dates (Jan. 12-Feb. 11, 2007), a droll one-woman play about dating, food and footwear, a remount of Horizon’s production from last March (that was also staged at Duluth’s Red Clay Theatre in November). Plus, from May 25-June 24, the theater presents Charm School, a satire of corporate diversity training by Eddie Levi Lee and Atlantan Larry Larson, first staged in January 2006 by Atlanta’s Essential Theatre.
The rest of Horizon’s lineup of Southeastern premieres promises to play to the theater’s strength of smart comedy alternating with socially relevant drama. Following the wintry romantic comedy Almost, Maine (Feb. 23-March 25) the theater presents the poetic political drama Nine Parts of Desire about the lives of nine Iraqi women affected by war and its aftermath (April 13-May 13). After Charm School, the playhouse switches gears with The Bluest Eye, Lydia Diamond’s adaptation of the first novel by Beloved author Toni Morisson. Horizon rounds out its year with The Water Coolers: An Office Musical, a song-and-dance romp set in the workplace (Sept. 14-Nov. 11).
Two smaller, scruffier companies have also announced their new lineups. Jack in the Black Box Theatre, now a resident company at Actor’s Express, will present a repertory of three edgy works next summer. From June 21-July 21, Jon Tyler Owens directs Shakespeare’s notoriously violent, lurid play Titus Andronicus. An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein offers naughty shorts from, of all people, the author of The Giving Tree (July 2-17, Aug. 6-28). Finally, groundbreaking playwright Naomi Wallace’s Slaughter City (rights pending) uses a meat-packing plant as the backdrop for a provocative, at times surreal tale (Aug. 1-Sept. 1).
Twinhead Theatre’s even less-conventional season includes such events as radio plays as well as bohemian versions of singing telegrams, as well as straight-up stage works. Loaded Guns, an evening of absurd sketches from the “Twinhead Minions,” plays Feb. 1-10 at PushPush Theater. Routines, a collection of short works by renowned beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti (May 24-26 at Eyedrum). Broads and ‘Bloids: the Musical presents a tuneful look at a 1945 tabloid reporter who stirs up the status quo at a “real” newspaper (Aug. 16-28 at PushPush Theater).
Finally, Synchronicity Performance Group has switched to a traditional season instead of a calendar year following some restructuring at the top. Co-founders Michele Pearce and Hope Mirlis have stepped down to pursue other interests, leading the third founder, Rachel May, as the sole producing artistic director. Married to Atlanta actor Daniel May, Rachel May is expecting her first child this winter, but plans for Synchronicity’s next season of provocative, female-oriented plays to begin in the fall of 2007.
Off-Script is an occasional column on the Atlanta theater scene.