The Alliance Theatre has announced complete casting for Basura, a new musical featuring original music and lyrics by
. The production will have its world premiere on the Alliance’s Coca‑Cola Stage on May 30, 2026, with performances scheduled through July 12. Opening night is set for June 12.The musical is inspired by the true story of Paraguay’s Recycled Orchestra, a youth ensemble that builds instruments from discarded materials. The story was previously documented in the award‑winning film Landfill Harmonic. Basura follows a community that forms an orchestra despite lacking traditional instruments, transforming scrap materials into playable creations.
The musical will star Jaci Calderon in the lead role of Nambi. The principal cast also includes Dario Alvarez as José, Zack Calderon as Nunu, Nathan Diaz as Dani, Isabel Gonzalez as Blanca, and Michelle Zink‑Muñoz as Sofía. Kevin Del Aguila, an Emmy Award winner and Tony Award nominee, will appear as Mario, and Mandy Gonzalez, a Drama Desk Award winner known for In the Heights and Hamilton, will play Mónica.
Ensemble members include David Andino, Monica Garcia Bradley, Victoria Gómez, Michael Marrero, Gage Martinez, Avital Tikva Masri, Kara Menendez, Coty Perno, Julio Rey, Lannie Rubio, Diego Turner‑Figueredo, and Ariana Valdes.
Basura will be directed by Michael Greif, a five‑time Tony Award nominee whose Broadway credits include Rent and Dear Evan Hansen. The book is written by playwright Karen Zacarías, a recipient of the National Latino Playwriting Award. Alex Lacamoire, a Grammy, Tony, and Emmy Award winner, serves as musical supervisor, orchestrator, and arranger.
The creative team also includes choreographer Patricia Delgado, dramaturg Ken Cerniglia, music director Cynthia Meng, associate director Andy Señor Jr., and associate choreographer Phil Colgan. Casting is by Kristian Charbonier of The Telsey Office, with Jody Feldman as casting director for the Alliance Theatre. David Lai is the music coordinator.
The production is presented in partnership with producers Michael Shulman and Colin Callender, along with Daniel Unitas. Wendy Orshan and Jeffrey Wilson of 101 Productions, Ltd. will serve as executive producers and general managers.
Tickets begin at $25 and are available through the Alliance Theatre.
Theatrical Outfit will continue its 49th season this spring with a new staging of Arthur Miller’s The Price, presented in partnership with The Breman Museum. The production, running April 8 through May 3 at the Balzer Theater at Herren’s, reunites the creative team behind two of the company’s most acclaimed recent works: Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski and The Lehman Trilogy.
Directed by Artistic Director Matt Torney with dramaturgy by Addae Moon, the production offers a contemporary look at one of Miller’s most personal plays—a drama that examines the weight of family history, the cost of long‑buried choices, and the uneasy process of reckoning with the past. First produced in 1968, The Price remains one of the playwright’s most intimate explorations of American identity, shaped by the economic upheavals and class anxieties that defined his early life.
Set in the attic of a dilapidated New York brownstone, the play centers on two estranged brothers who reunite to settle their late father’s estate. Surrounded by decades of accumulated furniture and family relics, they confront the diverging paths their lives have taken and the emotional debts that have never been paid. Their negotiations are complicated by the presence of Gregory Solomon, an aging Russian‑Jewish furniture dealer whose wit, resilience, and hard‑won wisdom reflect the immigrant experience that shaped so much of Miller’s worldview.
Torney notes that Miller’s biography is inseparable from the play’s emotional core. Born into an upper‑middle‑class Jewish family in New York, Miller watched his father lose everything during the Great Depression. The family left behind their Long Island home and moved to a modest apartment in Brooklyn, where Miller worked in his father’s furniture showroom and delivered bread as a teenager. Those experiences—of economic instability, working‑class struggle, and the fragile promise of the American Dream—echo throughout his body of work, and particularly in The Price.
The production brings back the trio of actors who led The Lehman Trilogy: Andrew Benator as Walter Franz, Brian Kurlander as Gregory Solomon, and Eric Mendenhall as Victor Franz. They are joined by Cara Mantella as Esther Franz.
Performances will take place April 8 through May 3 at the Balzer Theater at Herren’s, 84 Luckie Street NW. Season packages for 2025–2026 and single tickets for The Price are currently available through Theatrical Outfit.
“Duel Reality,” created by The 7 Fingers and presented at the Alliance Theatre, offers a lively, circus‑infused spin on “Romeo and Juliet.” The show blends acrobatics, dance, and broad theatricality into a family‑friendly evening that feels closer to a Vegas spectacle than a traditional piece of theatre.
The production’s strongest moments come from its physical acts. The aerial work, gymnastics, and hula‑hoop sequences are engaging and often impressive, especially for younger audiences or anyone seeing contemporary circus for the first time. While the acrobatics don’t reach the technical precision of Cirque du Soleil — a few performers visibly shook during handstands and balances — the athleticism is real, and the audience responded warmly.
Where the show struggles is in its attempt to merge circus with narrative. The performers open the evening by moving through the audience and establishing the rivalry between the Red and Blue teams, but the acting feels presentational rather than lived. The emotional stakes of Romeo and Juliet never quite take root, and the spoken moments often land with the broadness of a school production. The choreography also creates some confusion: one moment the teams are battling, the next they’re collaborating on an aerial stunt, with little clarity about how the story is progressing.
Still, “Duel Reality“ succeeds on the level of spectacle. It’s colorful, energetic, and accessible, with enough variety in its acts to keep families and children engaged. While the acting never reaches the level of truthful behavior under imaginary circumstances, the acrobatics carry the show, and the ending delivers the genuine emotional resonance that brings audiences to live theater.
It may not deliver the emotional depth it reaches for, but as a live acrobatic performance — especially for younger viewers — it’s a fun and visually engaging experience.
“Duel Reality” runs through March 1 at the Alliance Theatre.
Theatrical Outfit opens its 2026 season with the world premiere of “Bleeding Hearts,” a new play by Atlanta playwright Steve Yockey that blends farce, social satire, and a streak of menace.
Yockey, whose work has increasingly moved between theater and television—including “The Flight Attendant” and “Supernatural”—returns to his hometown with a script that examines the frictions of contemporary middle‑class life. The play follows Sloane Burke, whose uneasy domestic routine is disrupted when her husband brings home a drifter who may be dangerous. Their already strained household is further unsettled by a wealthy neighbor who treats the Burkes’ belongings as her own. What unfolds is a tightly wound comedy about class anxiety, moral blind spots, and the ways people misread one another.
The production is part of Theatrical Outfit’s “Made in Atlanta” initiative, a program focused on developing new work by local writers. In recent years, the program has yielded a hip‑hop musical about John Lewis that went on to win a Suzi Bass Award, a touring‑ready festival of new plays, and the premiere of “Flex,” which transferred to Lincoln Center.
Yockey’s return marks a continuation of his long relationship with Theatrical Outfit, which premiered his play “Venus” last season. His writing often blends dark humor with unease, using heightened situations to expose the pressures of contemporary life. Theatrical Outfit’s “Made in Atlanta” program functions as a counterweight to its steady rotation of American classics, highlighting the city’s growing community of playwrights.
The cast for Bleeding Hearts includes Josh Adams, Veronika Duerr, Christopher Hampton, Tony Larkin and Tess Malis Kincaid. Sean Daniels, formerly of Dad’s Garage, directs. The design team features Kat Conley (scenery), April Andrew Carswell (costumes), David Reingold (lighting), Dan Bauman (sound), and Sarah Beth “EssBee” Hester (special effects), with intimacy coordination by Bridget McCarthy.
The production runs Jan. 28 through Feb. 22 at the Balzer Theater at Herren’s. Tickets and additional information are available at theatricaloutfit.org or by phone at 678‑528‑1500.
Theatrical Outfit will open its 49th season with a new staging of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie at the Balzer Theater at Herren’s. The production marks a return of the Southern Gothic classic to Atlanta, with a design and casting approach that aims to reframe the play’s enduring themes for contemporary audiences.
The play, first staged in 1944, is widely regarded as Williams’ breakout work and a foundational piece of American memory drama. Set in a Depression-era St. Louis apartment, The Glass Menagerie follows the Wingfield family—Amanda, a faded Southern belle; her son Tom, a warehouse worker and aspiring poet; Laura, his reclusive sister; and Jim, the gentleman caller whose visit disrupts the fragile equilibrium of their lives.
Theatrical Outfit’s staging introduces a contemporary lens to The Glass Menagerie, emphasizing the play’s emotional architecture through stylized design and performance. Rather than leaning into period nostalgia, the production uses abstraction and contrast—particularly in lighting, sound, and scenic elements—to underscore the characters’ psychological isolation and yearning. Director Matt Torney’s approach centers on the tension between memory and reality, with a visual language that resists realism and invites audiences to inhabit Tom’s fractured recollections. This interpretive shift reframes the play not as a domestic tragedy, but as a meditation on escape, authorship, and the cost of tenderness.
Atlanta-based actor Terry Burrell will lead the cast as Amanda Wingfield, joined by Devon Hales as Laura, Stephen Ruffin as Tom, and Matt Mercurio as Jim. The production is directed by Matt Torney, with dramaturgy by Addae Moon.
The show runs from Oct. 29 through Nov. 23. Tickets and season packages are available at theatricaloutfit.org or by calling 678-528-1500.
“Young John Lewis” examines the ten crucial years in the early life of the congressman, and his journey from student activist to major leader in the Civil Rights movement – all by the time he was 28. Written by hip hop & spoken word playwright Psalmayene 24 and composed by Atlanta composer Eugene H. Russell IV, the play looks at how people’s convictions strengthen their courage and offers a fresh perspective on American history.
“Defiant optimism, radical love, and creative action—particularly during the pivotal years that we focus on in “Young John Lewis” are . . . examples for all of us,” said Psalmayene 24. “His life can be used as a roadmap to help navigate challenging times.”
“Being both an Atlanta native and a child of parents who marched with Dr. King, this show’s story resonates uniquely with me,” said Russell IV.
Thomas W Jones II (Passing Strange) returns to direct, choreograph, and lead an extremely talented group of Atlanta based designers, including: Dramaturgy by Addae Moon, Scenic Design by Isabel and Moriah Curley-Clay, Costume Design by Jarrod Barnes, Lighting Design by Ben Rawson, Sound Design by Matt Reynolds, and Properties Design by Caroline Cook, with Gabby Peralta serving as Stage Manager.
The show runs at Theatrical Outfit in Atlanta from June 4-29. Tickets can be purchased at Theatrical Outfit.
“The Reservoir,” the 2023/24 Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition Finalist, will premiere on the Hertz Stage at the Alliance Theatre March 29-May 4.
Following an acclaimed presentation as a finalist for the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition, The Reservoir will have its fully staged world premiere in a three-theater co-production with Denver Center for the Performing Arts and Geffen Playhouse.
Josh’s life is a mess. He’s come home to Denver from NYU to get his life together but can’t manage to stay sober. Desperate for camaraderie, he decides to bring his four loveable grandparents on his road to recovery. He drags them to Jazzercise class. He pressures them into playing memory games. He forces them to eat spinach by the handful. And eventually, when he can no longer help his grandparents, they begin to help him. Served up with outrageous humor and truth, The Reservoir reminds us that sometimes the path forward isn’t the one we expect.
The cast features Joyce Cohen (Denver Center for the Performing Arts: Benediction) as Irene, Atlanta-based actor Mark Kincaid (Alliance Theatre: Carapace) as Hank, Rodney Lizcano (DCPA: American Mariachi) as Hugo/Others, Vanessa Lock (Signature Theatre: Nest) as Patricia/Others, Philip Schneider (Yale University: Hamlet) as Josh, Lori Wilner (Broadway: Prayer for the French Republic) as Beverly, and Peter Van Wagner (DCPA: Choir Boy) as Shrimpy. Understudies include Mira Hirsch, R. Cameron Lee, Liam McKenna, and Michelle Neil.
Written by Jake Brasch and directed by Shelley Butler, “The Reservoir” runs on the Hertz Stage at Alliance Theatre March 29-May 4. Tickets are available at the Alliance Theatre.
“The Lehman Trilogy,” a quintuple Tony Award-winner in 2022, including for Best Play, is currently playing at Theatrical Outfit in Atlanta.
“Since the World Premiere at the National Theatre in London, “The Lehman Trilogy” has wowed audiences on Broadway and been performed all over the world,” says Matt Torney, Artistic Director of Theatrical Outfit. “It tells the story of the rise and fall of the Lehman Brothers bank, which was the first bank to fall in the financial collapse in 2008 but in a very unexpected way.”
The play begins with a young Jewish man, Henry Lehman, stepping off a boat onto a dock in New York City with only one piece of luggage. What follows is a story about brotherhood, economics, immigration and assimilation, the loss of identity, and how generations of Lehmans attempted to keep the business afloat through turbulent times in American history. The play captures the spirit that fueled American Capitalism and the Lehman dream of America, which grows in unexpected directions with each generation.
“At its heart,” says Torney, “the play is a story about three Jewish immigrants from a small town in Bavaria, and how each of them left their mark on their new adopted home.”
The play was sold out opening weekend and received rave reviews from attendees. A joint production of Theatrical Outfit and The Breman, the show is directed by Matt Torney and features some of Atlanta’s finest actors: Andrew Benator as Mayer Lehman, Brian Kurlander as Henry Lehman, and Eric Mendenhall as Emanuel Lehman. “The Lehman Trilogy” runs through March 5 at Theatrical Outfit. Tickets can be purchased at theatricaloutfit.org or jewishmuseumatl.com.
