Alliance presents on two stages: the 750-seat Alliance Stage and the more intimate 200-seat Hertz Stage. A children's series is also part of the mix.
The season opens with the Tony Award-winning musical comedy The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee in what will be the first regional theatre production of the Broadway hit. The staging, which includes the participation of the original creative team (including director James Lapine), will be in Atlanta for the project. The production will go on to a national tour following the August-September Atlanta bow.
Bernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession, about economic realities for women, plays September-October on the Alliance Stage.
In January-February 2007, Sister Act the Musical plays the Alliance Stage. Based on the screenplay to the Whoopi Goldberg movie of the same name, the show about a nightclub singer who hides in a convent and becomes choir director has music by Alan Menken (Little Shop of Horrors, Beauty and the Beast), lyrics by Glenn Slater and book by Cheri and Bill Steinkellner. It's a world premiere co-production with Pasadena Playhouse.
Cuttin' Up is a vibrant play with music, boasting African-American barber shop stories. It premiered at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. The play is based on the book by Craig Marberry, co-author of the best selling book "Crowns" (the play-with-music of which was presented in 2003 at Alliance). The book was adapted for the stage by playwright Charles Randolph-Wright. It'll play April-May 2007 on the Alliance Stage. Hot young American playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes (Yemaya's Belly) will see her Off-Broadway play Elliot, a Soldier's Fugue, on Alliance's Hertz Stage in September-October 2006. In it, "a young Marine coming home from Iraq bonds with his father (a veteran of Vietnam) and grandfather (a veteran of Korea)." It's "a poetic and dynamic work…that reaches out to a variety of different military generations and the Latin-American community to paint a moving portrait of the lives of three soldiers."
False Creeds, at the Hertz in February-March 2007, is the third winner of the nationally recognized Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition. Written by emerging playwright Darren Canady, it focuses "on the deep personal journey of a young African-American man who, while researching his family history, discovers the shocking truth about his ancestors."
The Hertz will also house Glengarry Glen Ross, the first David Mamet play to be produced at the Alliance Theatre. The "scorching masterpiece of big money schemes set in the ruthless world of real estate" plays March-April 2007.
The Alliance Family Series will include Disney's Aladdin, a new Theatre For Young Audiences stage adaptation of the film (October-November 2006), followed Go, Dog. Go!, the adaptation of PD Eastman's classic of the same name (March-April 2006).
A Christmas Carol will also return to Alliance Stage in November-December 2006.
Susan. V. Booth is Alliance's artistic director.
For more information, visit www.alliancetheatre.org.
