Order up! Horizon schedules ‘Waffle Palace,’ ‘Sheddin’’
Horizon Theatre’s new season includes Atlanta-themed plays by Larry Larson, Eddie Levi Lee, and Thomas W. Jones II.
- Allie Bartelski
- Bernardine Mitchell in 2009’s ‘A Cool Drink a Water’ at Horizon Theatre
Shortly before New Year’s, Horizon Theatre announced its schedule for the 2012 calendar year, which includes a remount of last year’s hit, an acclaimed Broadway drama and two world premieres from Atlanta playwrights and set in the ATL. First, the season begins with a return to Avenue Q (Jan. 13-Feb. 26), last summer’s highly popular, Suzi Award-winning, adult-themed riff on “Sesame Street.”
From May 11 through June 24, the playhouse pays tribute to a Southern institution with The Waffle Palace: Smothered, Covered, and Scattered 24/7/365. Actor/playwrights Larry Larson and Eddie Levi Lee (The Bench, Charm School) team up again for a high-spirited comedy inspired by actual events at Waffle House restaurants. According to the press release, “John Picket and his multi-racial staff battle to keep their Midtown diner open against heavy odds.” The driving forces behind the Southern Theatre Conspiracy in the 1980s, Larson and Lee have a penchant for including chainsaws in their plays, so don’t expect a polite comedy. Our own Waffle House expert Besha Rodell could vet The Waffle Palace for authenticity.
This year, Horizon’s unofficial annual summer team-up with writer/director/composer Thomas W. Jones II revisits a previous collaboration. Jones’ latest play, Sheddin’, serves as a follow-up to A Cool Drink a Water, his 2009 world premiere at Horizon. In Sheddin’, empty nesters Walt and Ruthie (played by Jones and Donna Biscoe two years ago) throw a homecoming party for their son Trane, a rising hip-hop star, although father and son both have hidden agendas for their reunion.
Finally, the drama Time Stands Still (Sep. 14-Oct. 14) serves as a kind of reunion for actors Chris Kayser and Carolyn Cook, who starred in Horizon’s luminous production of David Hare’s Skylight. In Time Stands Still they play a photojournalist and a reporter dealing with the emotional costs of covering the Iraq War and their attempts to adjust to a more conventional lifestyle. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Margulies is one of America’s greatest playwrights, and Time Stands Still sounds like the kind of globally-informed drama at which Horizon excels.