Rothko play has audiences seeing Red, in a good way by Curt Holman In 1958, abstract expressionist Mark Rothko agreed to paint a series of murals for a new Manhattan luxury restaurant, the Four Seasons. The $35,000 commission confirmed Rothko's rise as a major painter.… [ Read more ] [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ] ...

Actor's Express play struggles to reconcile religion and relationships by Curt Holman F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that "The true test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time."… [ Read more ] [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ] ...

Atlanta poet/musician marks career transition with album and performance by Curt Holman Kodac Harrison's right hand shakes as he switches one painting for another on the brick wall of 7 Stages' lobby. "There's too much white here," he remarks as he tweaks the color arrangement of his 15 canvases, which evoke the swirling, spattered style of Jackson Pollock.… [ Read more ] [ Subscribe to the comments on this ...

One-woman show offers female answer to Louis C.K.'s rants on parenting by Curt Holman In her new one-woman show, playwright/performer Megan Gogerty recounts a story about her great-grandmother. "She was a cook on a steamboat on the Mississippi River," Gogerty says, as if dusting off an oft-told tale at a family gathering.… [ Read more ] [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ] ...

Alliance Theatre goes back for sloppy seconds by Curt Holman For the fourth year in a row, the Alliance Theatre outsources another comedy show to the Second City. For the past three years, members of Chicago's legendary improv troupe wrote original, Atlanta-themed material for productions with names like Peach Drop, Stop and Roll.… [ Read more ] [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ] ...

Victorian-era sex comedy takes pleasure into its own hands by Curt Holman Synchronicity Theatre's In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play counts as a sex comedy, but don't get the wrong idea. Set in New York in the 1880s, the play features numerous scenes of women removing their dresses and corsets, but contains no actual nudity — the Victorian-era undergarments leave the ladies more clothed than the average ...

Play pits C.S. Lewis' Christianity against Freud's atheism by Curt Holman The couch takes on the wardrobe in the drama Freud's Last Session, which imagines a meeting of the minds between pioneering psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and Christian intellectual/Narnia author C.S. Lewis. In real life, the powerhouse thinkers never met, although Lewis spent most of his career as an Oxford University professor and Freu ...

Georgia Shakespeare, Actor's Express and other local playhouses take steps to stay open by Curt Holman To judge from the increasingly dire appeals of Atlanta's playhouses, the Great Recession is turning arts organizations into an endangered species. This year, three Atlanta playhouses, despite their history of loyal audiences and consistently strong work, have launched "save our theater" campaigns.… [ Read ...

Three new productions capture the zeitgeist of different eras by Curt Holman A stage play, like a time capsule, contains clues and common objects that can stand for an entire era. In the Alliance Theatre's new play Broke, a privileged husband prefers to shop at Whole Foods, which isn't just any grocer, but a store that caters to customers with progressive values and high incomes.… [ Read more ] [ Subscribe ...

Actor's Express production gets stuck in an awkward phase by Curt Holman Moritz Stiefel, the most troubled of the restless teens in Actor's Express's musical Spring Awakening, looks like a Frankenstein monster created by cold parenting and oppressive education. Bedeviled by erotic dreams, Moritz (Greg Bosworth) neglects his class work and struggles to keep his emotions under control.… [ Read more ] [ Subscr ...

Theatrical Outfit production too heavy on history and light on drama by Curt Holman Where the hit film The Help begins with an outsider's perspective on the black community at the time of Jim Crow, Theatrical Outfit's new play The Green Book presents African-Americans as the insiders looking out. Playwright Calvin Alexander Ramsey addresses compelling racial issues from the mid-20th century, including black ...

Pinch 'N' Ouch Theatre production pranks the Ivory Tower, multiculti oversensitivity by Curt Holman Before Pinch 'n' Ouch Theatre's comedy Body Awareness begins to explore the challenges of nontraditional relationships, playwright Annie Baker gently pranks the Ivory Tower. Phyllis (Daryl Fazio), a psychology professor, has organized Body Awareness Week at a small Vermont college and throughout the play she ...

Spotlight is on Mother Nature during rural theater's summer repertory by Curt Holman Amid the fields and forests of rural Georgia's Chattahoochee Hills, the Serenbe Playhouse theater seems to grow out of the Earth itself. For the company's world premiere production of The Ugly Duckling, audiences drive 32 miles south of downtown Atlanta to the Serenbe township.… [ Read more ] [ Subscribe to the comments on ...

PushPush Theater's off-kilter comedy will give you the warm fuzzies by Curt Holman A recurring theme that scurries through contemporary plays and other stories holds that modern life separates men from their true nature, but animals hold the key to their restoration. The idea ranges from werewolf thrillers to heartwarming pet movies, as well as an odd subset of men seeking romantic advice from talking anima ...

Playwright Mike Schatz lets it all hang out in fun, revealing new work by Curt Holman Early in his autobiographical play VIP Room, Mike Schatz considers Atlanta's reputation as the city with the highest number of strip clubs per capita in the world. The actor, musician and playwright delivers an almost Walt Whitmanesque rhapsody on our multitudinous titty bars, from such famous nightspots as the Cheetah to ...