If vacation or business travel is taking you to Washington over the holidays, you can check out some of Atlanta’s top theater artists at the Arena Stage.
Four cast members from the 2012 Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company production of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” are preparing to bow at its Fichandler Stage in a remounting of the drama: Andrea Frye as Mary Prentice (seen as Matilda Banks in Atlanta), Tom Key as Matt Drayton, Tess Malis Kincaid as Christina Drayton and Bethany Anne Lind as Joanna Drayton.
Kat Conley, set designer for the world premiere Atlanta staging, returns for the Arena Stage production, as well.
The run is Nov. 29 through Jan. 5.
The show is Todd Kreidler’s adaption of screenwriter William Rose’s original script about a distinguished doctor who falls in love with a young woman (played in the 1967 film by Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn) and what happens when her liberal white family realizes their soon-to-be son-in-law is black.
In his enthusiastic AJC review, critic Wendell Brock wrote: “If the play does travel to Broadway (as Leon plainly wishes), let’s just hope it takes with it Atlanta actors Tess Malis Kincaid (in Hepburn’s Oscar-winning role as the patrician San Francisco art gallery owner who sides with her daughter), Tom Key (as the blustery newspaperman-father) and Andrea Frye (as the family maid).”
For the Washington production, directed by David Esbjornson, Malcolm-Jamal Warner stars as Dr. John Prentice.
More information, tickets: www.arenastage.org.
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Atlanta Symphony CD out this week
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s fourth recording on its own record label, ASO Media, will be released on Tuesday, Nov. 19.
The all-Sibelius release features music director Robert Spano leading the orchestra in Symphony No. 6 in D minor, Symphony No. 7 in C Major and “Tapiola.” The digital version is already available for download on iTunes.
Distributed by Naxos of America, the ASO Media label launched with three recordings in 2011.
Chamber Players founder to retire
As she prepares to perform at next Sunday’s concert by the Atlanta Chamber Players, the group has announced that pianist and artistic managing director Paula Peace will retire in early 2015 from the group she founded.
Peace has led the highly regarded group for 38 seasons. During her tenure, it has performed in more than 250 cities in the U.S. and Europe and has premiered more than 125 chamber works.
“Through her vision and leadership, the ACP creates and presents chamber music to the very highest levels of acclaim,” Board President Jim Throckmorton said in a statement. “The board has been working with Paula for more than two years to prepare for this moment and we are sure that her legacy can be continued for at least another 38 years.”
Peace will make her ACP season debut in a 3 p.m. Nov. 24 concert at Ahavath Achim Synagogue, in a trio with soprano Ann Marie McPhail and clarinetist Laura Ardan, performing Franz Schubert’s “Shepherd on the Rock.”
Also on the “Cities & Countrysides” program: Aaron Copland’s “Quiet City” and Antonin Dvorak’s Piano Quartet in Eb Major, Opus 87.
Tickets: $20, $15 seniors, $5 students. 600 Peachtree Battle Ave. N.W., Atlanta. www.atlantachamberplayers.com.
DANCE
KSU scores early ‘Touchdown’
After Kennesaw State University announced in February that the Owls would begin playing football in 2015, KSU Dance Department chair Ivan Pulinkala proposed a collaboration with athletic director Vaughn Williams.
“I asked him, ‘Would you be interested?’ And before I could finish my sentence, he said, ‘Great idea!’ seeing the opportunity to partner athletics with an academic degree program at KSU.”
The result, the Pulinkala-choreographed “Touchdown,” will be the title work of a dance concert presented by the KSU Department of Dance from Nov. 20 to 23 at the Howard Logan Stillwell Theatre.
Continuing the collaborative theme, “Touchdown” will be danced in part to an original score by School of Music professor John Lawless and played live by the School of Music’s Percussion Ensemble. The performance will feature scenic design by Theatre and Performance Studies’ professor Ming Chen.
The program also includes Israeli choreographer Yoram Karmi’s “Derivative,” Bulgarian choreographer’s Momchil Mladenov’s “Con Moto-Mosso” and works by KSU dance faculty Stevan Novakovich and Christen Weimer.
Performances are 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Saturday. 1000 Chastain Road, Kennesaw. Tickets, $12-$20: 770-423-6650, http://bit.ly/1eq5dKt. More information: www.kennesaw.edu/dance.
KSU Dance Department also will perform "Touchdown" during the Rialto Center for the Arts' Off the Edge contemporary dance summit, Jan. 31 and Feb. 1. www.rialtocenter.org/edge.html.
ARCHITECTURE
Georgia design winners named
An adaptive reuse that transformed a former Chevrolet dealership paint and body shop into a new home for Congregation Or Hadash, and the restoration and reprogramming of the 1958 Decatur Recreation Center were recognized with Honor Awards recently during the Georgia chapter of the American Institute of Architects’ annual design competition.
The Atlanta architectural firm Bldgs was honored for its work in creating the first permanent home for the Conservative synagogue, on Trowbridge Road, just off Roswell Road, in Sandy Springs. LP3 Architecture, also of Atlanta, took the prize for its renewal of the rec center on Sycamore Drive in downtown Decatur.
Four Atlanta firms were multiple 2013 Design Awards honorees: Perkins and Will with four; and two each for Houser Walker Architecture, Gensler and LP3.
Full list of winning projects with photos: www.aiaga.org/designawards.
To read an earlier AJC story on Congregation Or Hadash's growth: http://bit.ly/HSizAQ.
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