The Alliance Theatre announced Tuesday the appointment of a new pair of artistic directors, Tinashe Kajese-Bolden and Christopher Moses.
The two will co-lead the Alliance, which is Atlanta’s flagship theater company. It is the first time in the theater’s 55-year history that its board has appointed a pair of artistic directors.
Both have been associate artistic directors at the theater. They have also served as interim co-directors since October of last year, when longtime leader Susan V. Booth left Atlanta to become artistic director at the Goodman Theatre, the largest non-profit theater in Chicago.
During the search process for Booth’s replacement, Kajese-Bolden and Moses offered their candidacy as a team.
Kajese-Bolden has been part of many Alliance productions, including last year’s “Toni Stone,” which she directed. She also directed “School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play” at Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre and has directed and acted at theaters on and off Broadway.
Moses has been with the Alliance for 20 years, overseeing education programs, developing shows for youth and families and coordinating the theater’s training programs.
Both have deep ties to the city of Atlanta.
Credit: Alliance Theatre
Credit: Alliance Theatre
“Susan (Booth) had such an important role in my journey as an artist,” said Kajese-Bolden. “She allowed me to cut my teeth on producing and developing new work. She put me on this trajectory.”
Moses echoed that sentiment. “My career would be unthinkable without Susan’s support. Both of us have ties to Kenny Leon as well,” he added, describing Booth and Leon as “titans.”
“Their vision for the theater’s continued relevance and growth is ambitious and compelling,” said Jocelyn Hunter, board chair of the Alliance and chair of the search committee, in a statement.
During the search process for Booth’s replacement, Kajese-Bolden and Moses offered their candidacy as a team.
Their impact on the Alliance will be instantly apparent, since the duo spent last year planning the shows for the 2023-2024 season, which will include four world premieres and two Pulitzer Prize-winning plays. One of the Pulitzer winners is “Fat Ham,” a distinctly Black, Southern look at “Hamlet,” scheduled for next spring.
“We have not seen a dual leadership model before,” said Kajese-Bolden. “We get to build this plane while we’re flying it.” She said one of the secrets of working together is “not micromanaging what the other is doing but coming together with collective ideas.”
Credit: Alliance theatre
Credit: Alliance theatre
The pair describe this bicameral innovation as not a compromise but a necessity, a way to deal with the expanding world of the Alliance.
As an example of their stacked responsibilities, they described a typical day in the life of the Alliance. On the day last week that Kajese-Bolden and Moses spoke with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, they were in rehearsals for “The Incredible Book Eating Boy” (based on the children’s book by Oliver Jeffers), while shepherding 471 summer campers around the campus and conducting a meeting with the architects for a new permanent youth and family theater.
Plus, “only the largest musical we’ve ever put on opens tomorrow night,” said Kajese-Bolden at the time, meaning the magic-dusted circus tale “Water for Elephants.”
Moses said “It’s impossible for one person to helm all this aspiration and ambition. We are building and growing at a time when many theaters in our industry are contracting.” The growth, he said, “can’t happen from the neck down.”
Moses will continue to be in charge of the Alliance’s training and education programs, as well as the theater’s programming for youth and families. He is instrumental in the program aimed at babies and toddlers, such as this year’s “Knock Knock” and “Oodles of Doodles.”
Theater for babies sounds like an improbable enterprise, but, said Moses, “that work is some of the most avant-garde, experimental, immersive, interesting work we get to do.”
Kajese-Bolden will continue to be involved in the development of new work. She has been directing the Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab, an incubator for Atlanta artists, and oversaw the Spelman Leadership Fellows program, which offers paid career opportunities for students interested in arts leadership positions.
During their period as interim co-leaders, the pair spearheaded a fundraising campaign to redesign the Richard H. Rich Theatre to make it a permanent home for youth and family drama.
Moses pointed out that the Rich Theatre is the only performance venue at the Woodruff Arts Center that faces Peachtree Street, and yet is the least-well known spot in the complex.
“It is criminally underused,” he said. “The whole notion is to open up a gateway facing the city, and activate that space daily.”
Their effort to shed sunlight on the Rich Theatre is emblematic of their drive to bring theater to a wider audience. Kajese-Bolden describes her goal as “theater that’s for the people by the people. We can grow into and beyond the limitations that are facing us right now.”
