LOCAL THEATRE
WHAT PROJECTS YOU ARE CURRENTLY WORKING ON AT THE ALLIANCE AND CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT SOME OF THE FUTURE PROJECTS? “Our next major new work is a gorgeous and wholly original musical called MAYBE HAPPY ENDING , about a pair of “helperbots” who are grappling with their obsolesce. It’s a futuristic piece that asks the big questions about love and mortality. And we have a full slate of musical and non-musical works in development that will start hatching in the 2020-2021 season that range in scale from deeply intimate to a piece of a larger scale than we’ve ever taken on before.” WHAT IS ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE ASPECTS OF YOUR JOB AS JENNINGS HERTZ ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AT THE ALLIANCE? “It’s a rare day that I don’t learn something. Whether it’s research I’m doing for a show I’m directing, a new aesthetic being practiced by a new collaborator at the theatre, or a conversation with a board member who works in a field I know nothing about -- I get to learn. Every day.” CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF DIVERSITY AND REPRESENTATION IN THE THEATRICAL WORLD? “This is an art form born from the simple premise that we must study our humanity to be better humans. It was never intended to just study some of humanity, nor to be attended by just some of the people. We have no business being anything short of radically inclusive, in the stories we tell, the artists we hire, and the audience we welcome.” WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE SIGNIFICANCE GEORGIA’S FILM INDUSTRY AND THE POSITIVE IMPACT IT IS HAVING ON GEORGIA? “The most critical thing the film industry in the state has done for theatre is make it possible for artists to live sustaining lives doing what they love. Actors can have children with the confidence that they’ll have the means to support them. Craftspeople know that there are deep and wide opportunities for them to ply the trades they’ve worked a lifetime developing, and that they’ll be valued for that work. It’s turned us into an arts center that supports artists.”
Susan Booth
F ounded in 1968, Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre is the national and leading producing theater in the Southeast, reaching more than 165,000 patrons annually. The Alliance delivers powerful programming that challenges adult and youth audiences to think critically and care deeply. Under Susan V. Booth’s leadership, the Alliance Theatre received the Regional Theatre Tony Award in recognition of sustained excellence in programming, education, and community engagement. Booth has degrees from Denison and Northwestern universities and was a fellow of the National Critics Institute and the Kemper Foundation. She has held teaching positions at Northwestern, DePaul, and Emory. Before joining the Alliance, she directed at several prominent theatres across the United States, including Goodman, La Jolla Playhouse, New York Stage and Film, and many others. She collaborated on local and regional productions and directed world premieres by award- winning writers, including Pearl Cleage, Janece Shaffer, National Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, Stephen King, John Mellencamp, and Kristian Bush. Booth also served on the board of directors for the Theatre Communications Group, which has informed her current role. “The Theatre Communications Group took on a national listening project that created a platform
for hundreds of individual theatre artists from all over the country and from a variety of practices to weigh in on their current quality of life. We wanted to hear about the relationship between arts organizations and individual artists. Based on those learnings, we replicated the process here and ended up creating the Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab to provide more professional development opportunities within the Alliance for our community’s theatre artists.” Booth kindly took time out of her hectic schedule to sit down with us and talk about her career and her role as Jennings Hertz Artistic Director at the Alliance Theatre. WHAT IS THE PROCESS OF SELECTION/DETERMINATION FOR THE PLAYS AND MUSICALS AT THE ALLIANCE? “We look at, listen to, and hear about hundreds of projects each season on the way to determining the 10 or so we’ll produce. We read submitted scripts, go to developmental readings of works in progress, meet with artists who have just the germ of an idea — and then we hold those possibilities against a couple of litmus tests: Is this talking about something that Atlanta is talking about? And is it speaking with a voice of welcome? Is there room in this narrative for people of all stripes? Is this a voice that has been overlooked or underserved? It’s a year-round process of curation.”
For more details on the lineup for the Alliance Theatre, to become members, and/or to purchase event tickets, please visit their website: www.alliancetheatre.org
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