Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre Company is operating with an $80,000 debt, but it's more than an unforgiving economy that is causing the hot Broadway director to plan dramatic cuts to his Atlanta-based troupe for the coming season.
Leon, who is returning to the Great White Way this fall with "The Mountaintop" starring Samuel L. Jackson, plans to trim True Colors' full-time staff from 10 to four and to present two to three plays instead of five for an abbreviated season that will not launch until after the new year.
In an exclusive interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution from New York this week, he characterized his troupe's debt as more of an irritation that will be addressed than a long-term impediment, and said the cuts are intended to encourage quality over quantity as True Colors enters its 10th anniversary season.
"It's a good time to look in the mirror and see what we are and what we want to do better," Leon said. "It's no secret that the economy has been tough on all the arts organizations across Atlanta. We can continue moving stuff around, but I don't think we're giving our best if we're always $50,000 to $60,000 under."
Though the 2012 season will not be announced until July, Leon hints that it will include a "major, major, major show" with significant imported talent that will cost more than any of the 2010-11 season's mostly small-cast stagings.
Clarifying that he's not planning to move "The Mountaintop," an imagined tale of Martin Luther King Jr.'s last night, to Atlanta, Leon said he does want to better mesh the Atlanta-based company with his own burgeoning stage career in cities including New York, Washington and Boston, not to mention his TV directing in Hollywood.
"We're finding we're a national company, but we just happen to be Atlanta," he said of True Colors. "We still want to have some antennas up in New York and work toward getting excitement from New York to Atlanta."
He also plans to greatly expand True Colors' educational mission, especially the August Wilson Monologue Competition. Leon, who's directed three Wilson plays on Broadway, launched the competition in 2009 as a way to expose a new generation to the seminal American playwright's work. Next year's fourth edition will grow to eight cities, and Leon said, "We want to be in 50 states really quickly."
The True Colors staff that Leon will reorganize over the next month, with advice from collaborators including Jasmine Guy, will include expanded development (full time for the first time) and education roles.
Leon also had these updates:
- He has cast a "Mountaintop" replacement for Halle Berry, who dropped out of the role of Camae, a hotel maid/angel, because of family issues. Until the contract is signed, he can't reveal the lead actress' name. "She's a very well-known actress, and she's great," he said.
Tickets went on sale this week for "Mountaintop," which begins previews Sept. 22 and opens Oct. 13 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre (www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200).
- Leon was back in New York for a reading of a script by Atlanta playwright Janece Shaffer, "Love From the Pyramids of Atlanta," which he called "one of the best plays I've ever read." Bebe Neuwirth was among the actors participating in the private Manhattan Theatre Club reading.
"They've always wanted to work with me," Leon said, "so we'll see."
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