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The Alliance Theatre is a theater company in
Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...
. It is part of the Robert W. Woodruff Arts Center. The company, originally the Atlanta Municipal Theatre, staged its first production (''
King Arthur According to legends, King Arthur (; ; ; ) was a king of Great Britain, Britain. He is a folk hero and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In Wales, Welsh sources, Arthur is portrayed as a le ...
'') at the Alliance in 1968. The following year the company became the Alliance Theatre Company. Within a decade, the company had grown tremendously and staged the world premiere of
Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three ...
' '' Tiger Tail'' and was casting such well-known actors as
Richard Dreyfuss Richard Stephen Dreyfuss ( ; Dreyfus; born October 29, 1947) is an American actor. He emerged from the New Hollywood wave of American cinema, finding fame with a succession of leading man parts in the 1970s. He has received an Academy Award, a ...
,
Morgan Freeman Morgan Freeman (born June 1, 1937) is an American actor, producer, and narrator. In a career spanning six decades, he has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, as well as a nomination for a Tony ...
,
Jane Alexander Jane Alexander (née Quigley; born October 28, 1939) is an American-Canadian actress and author. She is the recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, and nominations for four Academy Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. From 1993 ...
,
Paul Winfield Paul Edward Winfield (May 22, 1939 – March 7, 2004) was an American actor. He was known for his portrayal of a Louisiana sharecropper who struggles to support his family during the Great Depression in the landmark film '' Sounder'' (1972), whi ...
,
Robert Foxworth Robert Heath Foxworth (born November 1, 1941) is an American film, stage, and television actor. Early life Foxworth earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in acting at Carnegie Mellon University. Career Foxworth first gained attention as a sta ...
,
Jo Van Fleet Jo Van Fleet (December 29, 1915"The Birth of C ...
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and Cybill Shepherd. Other world premieres included Cybill Shepherd">ic]"">"The Birth of C ...
and Cybill Shepherd. Other world premieres included Ed Graczyk's ''Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (play)">Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean''.
Kenny Leon Kenny Leon is an American director and actor. He is notable for his extensive work on Broadway and television as well as in regional theater. He has received a Tony Award and a Drama League Award as well as nominations for three Primetime Emmy ...
became
artistic director An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre company or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogu ...
in 1988. Leon's work attracted a larger
African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...
audience by staging a more diverse selection of productions. During Leon's tenure, the company staged premieres of
Pearl Cleage Pearl Cleage ( ; born December 7, 1948) is an African-American playwright, essayist, novelist, poet and political activist.Spratling, Cassandra. "Pearl Cleage's Storied Life Cover Story." Detroit Free Press, Feb 21, 2010. ProQuest. Originally pu ...
's ''Blues for an Alabama Sky'',
Alfred Uhry Alfred Fox Uhry (born December 3, 1936) is an American playwright and screenwriter. He is the recipient of the two Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for '' Driving Miss Daisy'', as well as the Academy Award for the 1989 film adaptat ...
's ''
The Last Night of Ballyhoo ''The Last Night of Ballyhoo'' is a play by Alfred Uhry that premiered in 1996 in Atlanta. The play is a comedy/drama, which is set in Atlanta, Georgia, in December 1939. Plot The play is set in the upper class German-Jewish community living i ...
'', and
Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, songwriter and pianist. His music and showmanship have had a significant, lasting impact on the music industry, and his songwriting partnership with l ...
and
Tim Rice Sir Timothy Miles Bindon Rice (born 10 November 1944) is an English songwriter. He is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote, among other shows, '' Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'', ''Jesus C ...
's
musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...
''
Aida ''Aida'' (or ''Aïda'', ) is a tragic opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 De ...
'' which went on to
Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street ** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...
and won the
Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...
for Best Original Musical Score. Susan V. Booth became artistic director in 2000. Under her direction, the company produced the Broadway-bound production of the musical ''
The Color Purple ''The Color Purple'' is a 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker that won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction.Sister Act the Musical ''Sister Act'' is a musical based on the hit 1992 film of the same name with music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Glenn Slater, book by Bill and Cheri Steinkellner, and additional material by Douglas Carter Beane. After having a regional premiere ...
''. More recent Alliance musical premieres to transfer to Broadway include '' Bring It On: The Musical,
Tuck Everlasting ''Tuck Everlasting'' is an American children's novel about immortality written by Natalie Babbitt and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1975. It has sold over 5 million copies and has been called a classic of modern children's literatu ...
, The Prom, and
Water for Elephants Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...
.'' The Alliance Theatre performs in the 650-seat Coca-Cola Stage (formerly Alliance Stage) and the 200-seat Hertz Stage (formerly Studio Theatre), as well as
Theatre for Young Audiences Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA), also youth theatre, theatre for children, and children's theatre is a branch of theatre arts that encompasses all forms of theatre that are attended by or created for younger audiences. It blankets many differe ...
offerings. In June 2022, the venue staged the premiere of "Trading Places: The Musical!" directed by Leon and written by
Thomas Lennon Thomas Lennon (born August 9, 1970) is an American comedian, actor, and screenwriter. He plays Lieutenant Jim Dangle on the series ''Reno 911!'', Andrei Novak on '' Santa Clarita Diet'' and Felix Unger on '' The Odd Couple''. He is the screenw ...
.


References


External links


Alliance Theatre official website
*
''Encore Atlanta''
the official show program of the Alliance Theatre {{authority control Performing groups established in 1968 Theatre in Atlanta League of Resident Theatres Regional theatre in the United States Theatre companies in Georgia (U.S. state) Tony Award winners