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Children enjoy "The Tempest, Jr." at A Shakespeare Happening in Avondale Estates as part of a DeKalb County outdoor series on Sept. 13, 2025.
Credit: Kristi York Wooten / GPB News
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DeKalb County's outdoor Shakespeare series creates family fun with Tudor style
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LISTEN: A family-friendly outdoor Shakespeare series has launched in metro Atlanta, with the aim of bringing generations and neighbors together. GPB’s Kristi York Wooten speaks with the players who made it happen.
A family-friendly outdoor Shakespeare series has launched in metro Atlanta, with the aim of bringing generations and neighbors together.
On a warm Saturday afternoon in September, a MARTA train whizzed by on a track behind the Town Green in Avondale Estates, Ga., about a 6-mile drive from Atlanta city limits.
Families sat on blankets in the grassy amphitheater as players from the Atlanta Shakespeare Company performed scenes of the Bard's most famous works.
DeKalb County Super District 6 Commissioner Ted Terry watched from the wings under a shade tree. His office co-sponsored this free outdoor Shakespeare series, which continues on Oct. 11 and Nov. 15.
He said William Shakespeare's 16th-century storytelling fits the mood of these uncertain times.
"Particularly with Macbeth, but a lot of the plays really, I think, elucidate and are reminiscent of what we're going through today in our own political world," he said. "And so the themes of unchecked power, political strife, these are all things that Shakespeare wrote about and talked about. And through words and through the storytelling, it allows for us to reflect on our own times, but also hopefully bring people together to realize that we actually can disagree and still communicate and still be in the same spaces."
Nicole Sage, a public relations professional and producer in Atlanta, came up with the idea. She grew up in DeKalb County and as a child, participated in programs at Fernbank Elementary School that first piqued her interest in Shakespeare, along with later visits to Atlanta’s Shakespeare Tavern.
Last year, Sage began working to host a "Shakespeare Happening" in DeKalb's public spaces and sent a proposal of her initiative to Terry, who took it to the board of commissioners for approval. Next, the City of Avondale Estates donated the use of its Town Green venue. Then planning began with the Atlanta Shakespeare Company this summer and quickly gelled for the Sept. 13 kickoff.
The first production
The Tempest Jr. for kids and a "sneak peek" of Macbeth kept all ages engaged throughout the afternoon.
The Atlanta Shakespeare Company's Kati Grace Kirby played Lady Macbeth. She is also a lifelong Shakespeare fan who felt right at home in Avondale Estates' Tudor architecture, inspired, of course, by Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon in England.
"My parents were both British literature professors, so the first Shakespeare show I saw — I believe I was 7 years old — I saw a full-length production of Twelfth Night when I was 8," she said. "I saw Macbeth in Scotland, actually, and the first time that I remember coming to [Atlanta’s] Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse, I was 11. My parents tell me before that, all I could remember were the cheesecake brownies."
Atlanta Shakespeare Company's O'Neil Delapenha said the Oct.11 performance will feature scenes from Hamlet and Shakespeare Shorts, a modern take on the most famous playwright's brand of comedy and tragedy.
"I wrote a script that has a lot of my style of broad humor. It's got some wacky silliness. It's fun for families, young and old alike," he said. "And it's high-energy, high-paced, and it involves an audience volunteer who gets to come up and not kind of just be like a 'side-stander,' as I like to call them. They're the main focus of the show. They become the star of it."
While the DeKalb Shakespeare outdoor series is not as involved as, say, Shakespeare in the Park in New York City's Central Park, Kirby said the actors prepare in the same way.
"The thing we say often here at the Atlanta Shakespeare Company is we plan hard, and we pivot hard, and we came up with that saying when we were hosting the Shakespeare Theater Association Conference here a couple of years ago," she said.
"But it has served us well, and as we consider how to take what we do indoors and take it outdoors, because it's live theater," Kirby said. "You never know what's going to happen, and especially introducing the elements. You know, what do you do when a MARTA train rolls by during this very quiet, nuanced scene in Macbeth, you know? Because we don't ignore what's going on around us at the Playhouse, so transitioning that to the outdoor space, we did not have to figure out how to pivot to 'What do we do if it rains?' But I'm sure that's in the future, if we keep performing outdoors, and we're here. We're ready to see what comes next."
"A Shakespeare Happening" is a free outdoor family event at the Avondale Estates Town Green with performances on Oct. 11 and Nov. 15, 2025 from 2 to 5 p.m. Click here for more information.
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