literature theater

The Atlanta Opera launched its 2007-2008 season with a bold move into the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. Just as bold was the decision to feature a modern opera based on Cold Sassy Tree, a novel about life in rural Georgia at the turn of the 20th century.

A native of Georgia and writer for the ATLANTA JOURNAL, Olive Ann Burns wrote Cold Sassy Tree after finding out she had cancer at age 51. Based in the town of Commerce, Georgia in the early 1900’s, Burns tells the story of her great grandfather who scandalized the community when he married a much younger woman three weeks after the death of his first wife. Burns died in 1990, ten years before Carlisle Floyd’s opera of Cold Sassy Tree premiered at the Houston Grand Opera in 2000.

Carlisle Floyd is the dean of U.S. opera composers. His best known work is Susannah (1954), which has been performed and recorded more than any other opera in America. A native of South Carolina who currently lives in Florida, Floyd came to Atlanta during rehearsals and answered questions from both cast and crew.

State of the Arts follows the cast as they go through the rehearsal process with conductor Arthur Fagen and director John De Lancie. “Rucker Lattimore” is based on Burns’ great grandfather and is played by Kristopher Irmiter, who has performed the role four times. Carlisle Floyd wrote the role of “Will Tweedy” for John McVeigh, who has played Rucker’s grandson every time the opera has been performed in America. Erin Wall as “Love Simpson” and Georgia native Maureen McKay as “Lightfoot McClendon,” are both newcomers to their roles, which they perform brilliantly in the Atlanta production.

Our story ends on opening night of the Atlanta Opera’s production of Cold Sassy Tree at the Cobb Energy Centre. As the opera concludes, 81 year-old composer Carlisle Floyd is welcomed onstage to thunderous applause. Cold Sassy Tree has come home to Georgia.

For more information, visit the Atlanta Opera’s website: www.atlantaopera.org

Muppets creator Jim Henson and his Atlanta Legacy

Almost thirty years ago, Vincent Anthony opened the doors to Atlanta’s own Center for Puppetry Arts. Cutting the ribbon that day was personal friend and Center supporter Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets and world renowned for his puppetry genius. Over the next ten years Henson would visit the Atlanta Center for Puppetry Arts and donate his time, talents and name to the organization. After his death in 1990, Henson’s family continued to support the Center, which is the largest of its kind in the United States. Recognizing the importance of the Center’s mission to entertain and enlighten audiences, nurture the world community of artists, expand the puppetry art form, and explore the past, present, and future of puppetry, Henson family members have donated their personal collection of Muppet memorabilia to the Center.

Visit the Center for Puppetry Arts website for more information at www.puppet.org

The Center for Puppetry Arts plans to open a new Jim Henson Wing in 2012. The facility will allow visitors to “travel to his early days on local Washington, DC television, proceed through the creation of the world-famous Muppets, and then journey into the breath-taking worlds of his fantasy films.” This exciting project will only be possible if the Center is able to raise the funds for the new building, which is designed to house hundreds of artifacts from Jim Henson’s personal collection. Until the new wing is complete, visitors can enjoy exhibits featuring some of the collection including “Jim Henson: A Man and His Frog” and “Jim Henson: Puppeteer.”

I didn’t want to just do theatre, I wanted theatre to do society. I wanted to participate in theatre that deeply, truly mattered. – Susan Booth

From small town Ohio to big city Chicago and now in Atlanta, such drive has led Susan Booth to nurture, direct and create plays and musicals that speak to their particular communities and leave their audiences buzzing. Since 2001, Susan Booth has been the Artistic Director of Atlanta’s flagship Alliance Theatre. With her husband, Max Leventhal, as the theater’s General Manager, the Alliance is now a family business that is paying big dividends for Atlanta’s artistic prestige. In 2007 the Alliance was awarded the Tony for Regional Theater in recognition of the theater’s programming and community engagement – but Susan Booth has big dreams for even more.

Stories from a Goodly Portion of Beautiful Northeast Georgia

Stories collected from seven counties in the northeast Georgia mountains make up the plot, action and excitement of Headwaters. Co-written by nationally recognized folk play author Jo Carson and Sautee Nacoochee native Jerry Grillo, Headwaters employs the talents of 30 volunteers from around the area. The stories focus on the lives and trials of people in northeast Georgia. Stories ranging from those telling of local communities coming together in times of need to picnics interrupted by bears highlight life in the mountains. Under the guidance of director Lisa Mount, Headwaters sings, dances and laughs its way into State of the Arts.

Visit the Sautee Nacoochee Center's website.

The Ancient Greeks had a version powered by water. They are described in many ways, from the “King of Instruments” to “musical 747s”. And we often hear one without seeing it or its player. They are pipe organs! In recent years, metro Atlanta has seen a renaissance in pipe organ music as churches and concert halls have invested in expensive new instruments. Together with some stellar older pipe organs, they are drawing audiences back to the artform. Pipe organs are complex machines, gorgeous to see, glorious to hear and, as we learn from some local experts, devilishly difficult to play.

In this segment, we meet: Bruce Neswick and the vintage Aeolian-Skinner organ at the Cathedral of St. Philip; Timothy Albrecht and the new Jaeckel organ at Emory’s Donna and Marvin Schwartz Center for Performing Arts; Scott Atchison and the massive Mander organ at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, and Norman Mackenzie and the new Petty-Madden at Trinity Presbyterian Church. Visit the Atlanta Chapter of the American Guild of Organists for more information.

Rising opera star from Georgia

Soprano Leah Partridge has received consistent praise for her virtuosic technique and dramatic insight. She has made some of the great bel canto roles her own, and her career already includes many performances of the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor, Violetta in La Traviata, and Gilda in Rigoletto.

In the 2008 season, Leah Partridge makes her Metropolitan Opera debut singing the First Niece in a new production of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes.

Born in Lincolnton near Augusta, Partridge lives today in Macon, Georgia. She attended Mercer University there as an undergraduate music major and went on to study the operatic repertoire at Indiana University as a graduate student. In between her globe-trotting engagements in opera houses around the world, Partridge found time to perform for State of the Arts at the GPB studios with Craig Kier, esteemed accompanist for the Atlanta Opera. Learn more about Ms. Partridge at the Columbia Artists Management website.

A New Look at Author Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor is considered by many to be one of America's greatest writers. A native of Savannah who lived nearly all her adult life in Milledgeville, O'Connor developed lupus when she was 25 and died from the disease at age 39. In her brief life she wrote two novels and some of the finest short stories ever penned by an American writer.

A devout Catholic, O'Connor’s fiction is filled with violence and grotesque characters, creating a mystique around O'Connor which remains to this day. So when 274 letters written by O'Connor to a fan were unsealed after 20 years in May 2007, both critics and the public eagerly sought to learn more about the enigmatic writer from Georgia. In this segment State of the Arts takes a new look at Flannery O'Connor. To learn more about O’Connor and her work, visit Andalusia Farm's website.

Eugenia Price's inspirational books, novels and autobiographies captured the nation and then the world, but what captured Price was her second home, Georgia. Born in 1916 in Charleston, West Virginia, Price spent most of her early days leaping from college to college, yet never earning a bachelor's degree. At 23 she joined the NBC family to write daytime soap serials. Over the next few years she opened her own production company and continued to write serials and broadcast radio shows in Chicago. After earning acclaim as an inspirational speaker and writer through her radio broadcasts, Price took a trip that would affect the rest of her life.

On her way from West Virginia to Florida to give a speech about her latest novel, Price stopped over at St. Simon's Island. She immediately fell in love with the island and stayed there to begin her first works of historical fiction. After writing the St. Simon's Trilogy, Price continued to set most of her novels in the landscapes of Georgia and Florida.

Her love affair with the island led to a commitment to the care and upkeep of its unique and beautiful landscape. Price fought to keep the island's marshes, beaches, and wildlife from harm from industrial pollution and over-population. She also fought to maintain the historical sites.

Eugenia Price passed away in 1996, but her legacy lives on in her 39 books and in the imaginations she has touched with her words.

You can read more about Eugenia Price here.

The Hambidge Center for the Arts and Sciences was founded in 1934 by Brunswick native Mary Hambidge. A free spirit, early feminist and fabric designer of genius, Hambidge achieved international fame for her unique creations beginning in the Depression years and lasting until her death in the 1970s. Mary Hambidge's legacy would be the Hambidge Center, a 600-acre artist community located in the mountains of northeast Georgia's Rabun County.

The Hambidge Center today serves as a refuge for artists seeking to renew their creative spirit away from the fast-paced demands of our high-tech world. State of the Arts visits the Hambidge Center to take a closer look at its visionary founder, its rich history, and the artists who explore and expand their talents in this beautiful setting.

Visit the Center's website.

One of the nation's greatest poets has recently joined the faculty at Emory University in Atlanta. Born in Nebraska and educated at top Ivy League schools, Kevin Young is a poet who finds meaning in the bittersweet history of Black America and inspiration in the essence of its spoken language.

Young also believes in the musical power of poetry, and in this segment for State of the Arts, he performs his works against a backdrop of evocative images, set to the rhythms of jazz and the blues.

Visit his website.