• CarlChristiePhotography.com.
• Sean Moreno (left) and Cordell Cole in Georgia Shakespeare’s production of The Tempest

Georgia Shakespeare opened its 2012 season last night with an open-air production of The Tempest at Piedmont Park. Previously known as Shake at the Lake, the outdoor series returns this year with a new, less rhymey name — Shakespeare in the Park — after a storm of financial distress and a frantic but successful bit of fundraising in the last year. (I liked Curt Holman's suggestion of calling it Bard on the Sward, myself.) A $300,000 grant from the Charles Loridans Foundation is allowing Shakespeare in the Park to continue at the Legacy Fountain for the next three years.

The company's brisk production of Shakespeare's tale of bad blood, mystical sea nymphs, young love, and old drunks takes full advantage of having a fountain as a stage. In the opening scene, Carolyn Cook's Prospera whips up a wild tempest and the jets blast columns of water around the set as actors careen about on a capsizing ship. Cook delivers a cunning and confident Prospera with a salty sense of humor. Neal A. Ghant's performance as the savage Caliban is achingly contorted and Golem-like while Chris Kayser's Ariel spirits mischief with abandon.

• Debbie Michaud
• Picnic crowd at Shakespeare in the Park

It's a beautiful setting at the Legacy Fountain for staging of this play and a sunset picnic, and more than makes up for the fact that we haven't heard anything about Screen on the Green this year. (AHEM) The play runs through the weekend, and you can score yourself free tickets each morning before the show at Piedmont Park and the Georgia Shakespeare Box Office.

More photos from last night's opening after the jump.

• The Goat Farm/ SAÏAH
• Rua|Wülf is a redenition of the classic Little Red Riding Hood tale.

The Goat Farm, a sanctuary of sorts for the Atlanta art community, will be the backdrop for a new take on the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood.

Titled Rua|Wülf, the project is the creation of the young Atlanta theatrical organization SAÏAH. Like many of the performances that take place as the gothic industrial compound, the production will migrate around the Goat Farm's 12 acres as the story unfolds, immersing the audience in Rua's (Little Red Riding Hood) journey to her grandmother's house. Rua|Wülf's director, Marium Khalid, discusses the play's larger themes about decisions and how the consequences of choices can affect future generations.

What makes the Goat Farm good setting for your production?
When you walk through the gates of the Goat Farm Arts Center, the first realization that hits you is how does this place exists in the middle of the city? Every inch of this place is soaked in history; rustic yet, a beautiful Victorian-esque sight. It seems like a story yet to be revealed. When we began the process of Rua | Wulf we simply opened that book and invited everyone to share the journey with us.

• Drake Simons
• PEFORMATIVE INFLUENCE: Jayson Warner Smith as Bobby Gould and Rob Mello as Charles Fox in Speed-the-Plow

So many other plays, films and TV shows have relished Tinseltown talk while satirizing showbiz morality that Speed-the-Plow can get lost among the likes of Sunset Boulevard and The Player. Nevertheless, Pinch ‘N’ Ouch Theatre offers a lively and engrossing production of Speed-the-Plow in its new performance space at the Druid Hills Baptist Church.

Speed-the-Plow presents a dilemma to newly promoted studio head Bobby Gould (Jayson Smith): Should Bobby green light a surefire hit prison/buddy film with an A-list actor, or adapt a dreary-sounding novel about radiation, the end of the world, and other high-brow themes?

As a business decision, it’s a no-brainer, but Gould’s personal relationships make it more complicated. The prison movie would make the career of Charles Fox (Robert Mello), Bobby’s loyal, long-suffering colleague. Bobby’s temp Karen (Jackie Costello), a Hollywood newcomer, champions the radiation movie as a chance to deliver a profound, positive message. Would Bobby rather be a good friend or a good man? Would he rather make money or good movies?

• STAN BAROUH
• WAS IT SOMETHING I SAID?: Mike Daisey's latest monologue "The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," which examines the manufacturing practices of Apple Computers, has become the subject of controversy.

Daisey's latest show The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs brought even more attention to the artist, probably more than he ever imagined or wanted. The recent monologue details a visit Daisey took to China to observe the manufacturing practices that are involved in creating the sleek gizmos we all love: iPads, iPods, MacBooks.

The show's dramatic and touching description of the inhumane conditions in Chinese factories caught the attention of the NPR show "This American Life," which broadcast his performance. The episode, which consisted almost entirely of excerpts from Daisey's monologue, went viral and quickly became one of the most popular episodes of the show ever. All good, right?

• Stephanie Richardson

According to the press release, Celles d’en Haut (or "The Women Above") is a hilarious and colorful play set in a 1950s sanitorium, set apart on an isolated mountaintop. Using shrewd humor, the play questions human choices and explores numerous themes: sickness, the power of medication (and our quickness to succumb blindly to that power), and the deification of doctors. It also investigates how institutions might become beneficial and restorative islands, set apart from the deafening din of the world.

The play is slated to have its official world premiere in Atlanta in 2013. Guest director Olivier Kemeid, a prominent force on the Quebec theater scene, will work with four actors from Chicago, Quebec and Theatre du Rêve for the event, including acclaimed Atlanta actors Park Krausen and Carolyn Cook.

The performance will take place in the Alliance's 3rd floor Black Box at the Woodruff Arts Center tonight, Tuesday, March 20, at 7:00 p.m. with a reception with complimentary wine and beer to follow at the Alliance Française d'Atlanta across the street at Colony Square.

• Chris Bartelski
• Laura Floyd as Bonnie Parker and J.C. Long as Clyde Barrow in Aurora Theatre's "Clyde 'n Bonnie: A Folktale"

The new musical "Clyde 'n Bonnie: A Folktale," now on stage at Lawrenceville's Aurora Theatre through April 8, sticks pretty closely to that classic recipe. In fact, it treats the old recipe as if it's a scientific formula, adding each element in calibrated measurements and carefully placing everything in just the right place.

The result is an old-fashioned, energetic, crowd-pleasing musical in the mold of "Guys and Dolls," "The King and I" or "The Music Man." Those who love the old stuff will leave happy, but the show is unlikely to win any new converts to musical theater, and some may even feel that the formula has been followed too rigidly.

From the press release:

The Theatre in the Square Board of Directors has announced that it will suspend all theatre performances effective Monday March 19, 2012. Board Chair Mike Russell stated, “After three days of board deliberations and financial analysis, we have decided that it is not feasible for us to finish our current season or launch a 31st season. We simply do not have the money.”

The Marietta City Council approved a $30,000 contribution to help the Theatre keep afloat while it finishes its performing season and plans for the future. Russell said, “Our Board of Directors was incredibly moved and grateful for the City Council’s unanimous vote to approve this funding. However, we can’t accept the funding in good conscience knowing that we will still have to close our doors in a matter of days.”

The Board of Directors raised $83,000 of the $400,000 needed to operate over the next three months and pay down vendor debt. Russell said, “We just don’t see any indication that we will be able to bring in that amount of money, much less additional funds required to launch a new season. We have begun staff layoffs and we have paid our current lease through March 31, 2012.”

Russell continued, “The Board wants to thank everyone who has stepped up over the past year to give cash contributions. We would not have been able to carry out the first few plays of the season if those donations had not been made. They were fantastic performances worthy of the support.”

Now the Board has the heart-wrenching task of closing down an organization that has been part of Marietta’s vibrant downtown for over 30 years. Russell said, “We understand that this is a painful decision that will impact many people: the dedicated staff, our vendors, season ticket subscribers, and our downtown neighboring businesses. We are meeting throughout the next two weeks with counsel to best address our obligations. We are also investigating an opportunity with one or more area theatres for a ticket swap for our current ticket holders of the remaining season plays.”

• Synchronicity Theatre
• GIRLZ N DA HOOD: Renita James and Brian Harrison in 'Petite Rouge'

Joan Cushing's Cajunized version of the story recasts the characters as bayou animals, with precocious young Petite Rouge (Renita James) being a duckling, although the show only lightly implies the roles' beastly natures. Petite Rouge convinces her skeptical mother to allow the girl duck to take some spicy gumbo to her laid-up Grandmere. Petite Rouge's straight-arrow friend Tejean (Steven D. Brun) a cat who more closely resembles Urkel, accompanies her to make sure she doesn't get sidetracked. Instead of a crafty wolf, however, the tale features the crafty and ravenous alligator Claude, played as a flamboyant comedic villain by Brian Harrison.

Horses, beasts and big stage versions of such movies as Sister Act and Flashdance will come to Atlanta over the next year with the new seasons of Theatre of the Stars and Broadway in Atlanta. Theatre of the Stars' 60th anniversary season includes:

The Producers (July 24-29). Mel Brooks said that his hit stage version of the classic comedy put the "comedy" back in "musical-comedy.

Peter Pan (Aug. 7-12). Tony Award nominee Cathy Rigby takes to the air as J.M. Barrie's famed boy who wouldn't grow up.

The Addams Family (Aug. 14-19). The creator of Jersey Boys take on Charles Addams' famously macabre but loving brood.

The King and I (Sep. 5-11). Rogers and Hammerstein's classic musical features such timeless show tunes as "Getting To Know You" and "Shall We Dance."

Blue Man Group (Jan. 15-20). They'll do that blue voodoo that they do so well.

Mary Poppins (April 2-7). Based on the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Disney musical.