Accused by an unreliable student of inappropriate behavior in her New York Public School, Evelyn is dismissed to a small forgotten classroom to await her hearing and her fate. There she encounters colleagues trapped in the same limbo. Paralleling the great diversity of their classrooms, the educators couldn’t be more different. As days turn into weeks and months, fights and friendships reveal their plans, hopes and secrets. It’s like detention for teachers. Not exactly hell, it’s Evelyn in Purgatory.

With Bobbie Elzey, Mark Gray, Megan Hayes, Shelly McCook, Stacy Melich and Matt Myers. Directed by Patricia Henritze with dramaturgy by Suehyla El-Attar.

There will be a talkback with the playwright immediately following the reading. This series is made possible through a grant from the Hellen Ingram Plummer Charitable Foundation.

Tickets are $10 at the door or available for purchase online. Call (404) 949-7160 or email rsvp<at>workingtitleplaywrights.com.

About 100 bold artists will convene at Onstage Atlanta to write, direct, and perform eight short plays in the span of 24 hours.  Performance will be Sunday, May 23, 2010, at 8 pm.

It’s bold.  It’s risky.  The mantra of the 24-Hour Plays has always been: This ain’t theatre for crybabies.

Tonight, 16 writers will meet at 10 pm at Onstage Atlanta.  Paired randomly, they will have until dawn to come up with eight 12-minute scripts.  Eight directors will come in at 9 am and cast their plays from sixty headshots submitted by our brave thespians.  Then it’s a marathon day of rehearsing, staging, costuming, and setting tech for an 8:00 pm curtain on Sunday, May 23rd.  The show ends at 10 pm, exactly 24 hours after the writers first convened.

The Atlanta 24-Hour Plays were introduced in ten years ago as a benefit for Synchronicity Performance Group and Plain Sight Productions, produced in conjunction with Horizon Theatre’s New Horizon series.  The event was an immediate success, serving to introduce a legion of rising artists to the Atlanta community, and forging new partnerships and collaborations.  Working Title Playwrights and producer Topher Payne are honored to continue this extraordinary event with the support and encouragement of Synchronicity and Plain Sight.  Our 2009 revival of the series was an unprecedented success for Working Title, and now the excitement continues.

Come play! Join us on Sunday night at Onstage Atlanta in Suburban Plaza, 2597 North Decatur Road, Decatur (next to Big Lots) and see what we’ve cooked up.  The show starts, ready or not, at 8:00 pm on Sunday, May 23rd. Tickets are $15.  Box office and bar will open at 7 pm.  There are no reservations for the event, so get there early!

Then, join Working Title Playwrights and the whole Atlanta theater community at a gathering at Manuel’s Tavern to celebrate the life and memory of our dear friend, Allen Hagler. Share memories, tell irreverent stories (you KNOW he’d like that), and hoist a glass in a toast or two. The fun begins at 7:30pm. Spread the word!

Manuel’s Tavern is located at the corner of North and Highland Avenues in Atlanta.

HB1049 gives each county in Georgia the ability to invest a fraction of a penny sales tax to support cultural assets and economic development initiatives in their community, when and if they so choose. Click here for more details on how HB1049 works.

Take action now, and share this message with colleagues and friends who support art & culture. Email/Call members of the RULES Committee asking for SUPPORT of HB 1049 (See members & contact information listed below) The message should be brief. Add a personal note on why this is important to you.

Again, please keep your message brief — example:
Subject: Support HB1049
Message: With strong bi-partisan support, please help us get HB 1049 on an upcoming agenda for the Rules Committee.  Support HB1049 this year because it provides our county with an economic development tool kit that will not only stabilize the cultural industry but will support a range of economic development initiatives so desperately needed in our own community.

Members of the Rules Committee:
Jan Jones (R, Fulton)
Email -jan.jones@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.5072

Bill Hembree (R, Douglas County)
Email -bill.hembree@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.5141

Jerry Keen (R, Glynn County)
Email -jerry.keen@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.5052

Edward Lindsey (R, Fulton)

Email -  edward.lindsey@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.5024

James Mills (R, Hall County)
Email – james.mills@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.5099

Wendell Willard (R, Fulton County)
Email -wendell.willard@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.5125

Terry Barnard (R, Evans, Liberty & Tattnaill Counties)
Email -terry.barnard@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.5138

Tim Bearden (R, Carroll & Douglas Counties)
Email -tim.bearden@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.0287

Tommy Benton (R, Barrow, Hall & Jackson Counties)
Email -tommy.benton@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.0177

Mark Burkhalter (R, Fulton County)
Email – mark.burkhalter@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.7146

David Casas (R, Gwinnett County)
Email – david.casas@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.0254

Jill Chambers (R, DeKalb County)
Email – jill.chambers@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.3949

Mickey Channell (R, Greene, Oglethorpe, Putnam& Wilkes Counties)
Email -mickey.channell@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.7856

Mike Coan (R, Gwinnett County – Lawrenceville)
Email -repcoan@charter.net

Phone – 404.656.6801

Jim Cole (R, Jasper, Jones, Lamar and Monroe Counties)
Email – jim@votecole.com

Phone – 404.651.7737

Sharon Cooper (R, Cobb County)
Email – sharon.cooper@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.5069

Katie Dempsey (R, Floyd)
Email -

katie.dempsey@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.0213

Karla Drenner (D, DeKalb)
Email – dren16999@aol.com

Phone – 404.656.0202

Earl Ehrhart (R, Cobb County)
Email -earl@ehrhart.4emm.com

Phone – 404.463.2247

Gerald Greene (D, Calhoun, Clay, Early, Miller, Randolph & Seminole Counties)
Email – gerald.greene@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.0314

Bob Hanner (D, Chattahoochee, Lee, Quitman, Stewart, Terrell & Webster Counties)
Email – bob.hanner@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.7859

Carolyn Hugley (D, Muscogee County)
Email – carolyn.hugley@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.5058

Mike Jacobs (R, DeKalb County)
Email – repjacobs@comcast.net

Phone – 404.656.0152

John Lunsford (R, Butts, Henry & Newton Counties)
Email - john.lunsford@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.0213

Judy Manning (R, Cobb County)
Email – judy.manning@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.7857

Fran Millar (R, DeKalb County)
Email – fran.millar@wellsfargo.com

Phone – 404.656.5064

Greg Morris (R, Emanuel, Montgomery, Toombs, Treutlen & Wheeler Counties)
Email – greg.morris@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.657.8441

Howard Mosby (D, DeKalb & Henry Counties)
Email – howard.mosby@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.0287

Butch Parrish (R, Bulloch, Candler, Emanuel and Johnson Counties)
Email – larry.parrish@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.463.2247

DuBose Porter (D, Johnson & Laurens Counties)
Email – dubose.porter@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.5058

Nikki Randall (D, Bibb County)
Email – nikki.randall@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.0109

Tom Rice (R, Fulton & Gwinnett Counties)

Email – tom.rice@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.5912

Jay Roberts (R, Ben Hill, Irwin, Jeff Davis, Telfair, Tift & Wheeler Counties)
Email – jay.roberts@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.7153

Austin Scott (R, Tift & Turner Counties)
Email – austin.scott@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.0188

Jay Shaw (D, Berrien, Clinch, Lanier & Lowndes Counties)
Email – jay.shaw@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.7859

Donna Sheldon (R, Gwinnett County)
Email – donna.sheldon@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.5025

Bob Smith (R, Clarke, Morgan Oconee & Oglethorpe Counties)
Email – bob.smith@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.0126

Lynn Smith (R, Coweta and Heard Counties)
Email – lynn.smith@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.7149

Calvin Smyre (D, Muscogee County)
Email – calvinsmyre@synovus.com

Phone – 404.656.0116

Ron Stephens (R, Chatham, Liberty  & Bryan Counties)
Email – ron.stephens@house.ga.gov

Phone – 404.656.5099

Len Walker  (R, Gwinnett & Walton Counties)
Email – lwalker107@gmail.com

Phone – 404.656.5146

You support a strong, vibrant arts community in Georgia, don’t you? Well, here’s a great chance to demonstrate this in a tangible and most important way. Thank you in advance!

With Kate Donadio, Louis Gregory, Tess Malis Kincaid, Mark Kincaid, Bill Murphey, and Mike Niedzwiecki.

When a married, closeted music minister brings a young drug addict home for personal rehabilitation, tragedy leads to a surprising redemption in this triangle of love, lust, and violence.

THE SMILES is based on a murder trial the playwright covered as a reporter for The Raleigh News & Observer. Working on State Desk, she covered many stories in small southern towns, places that, to the reporter,- seemed stranded and bleak, but, to the people interviewed, it was home, it was safe, and it held everything that mattered. The murder occurred in one of those towns.

THE SMILES is an exploration of some of the many forms of desire and attachment, how darkly they can be exploited, how violently they can transform, and how dangerous they can be. THE SMILES received the 2009 national Pillars Playwriting Award.

Betty Hart will moderate a talkback with the playwright following the reading. Your participation is greatly appreciated.

WHEN: Monday, March 22, 2010
TIME: 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: Academy Theatre, 119 Center St., Avondale Estates, Ga.
Directions: http://academytheat re.org/Directions.asp
PRICE: FREE to WTP members, $5 suggested donation all others.

For more information please contact Jill Patrick, WTP Managing Artistic Director, at 404.441.2716 or via e-mail to managing<at>workingtitleplaywrights<dot>com.

A service will be held on Tuesday, March 23rd, 11am, at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta, Georgia.

A celebration of his life is being planned for another date, the details of which will be shared as they emerge.

His family invites all his friends and loved ones to attend the service(s) and asks that in lieu of flowers you send contributions to Hospice of Atlanta, The American Cancer Society or the charity of your choice.

Thank you all for the support you demonstrated along Allen’s journey. Fair thee well, Allen.

7:30 p.m., Academy Theatre, 119 Center St., Avondale Estates, GA. Free to Working Title Playwrights members. $5 suggestion all others.

You think you know. You think you do. Turns out you don’t know one damn thing!

It’s Memorial Day weekend, and Esther’s middle-aged children, Pauline, Clarissa, Katherine and Robert, have gathered for the first time since her death a year a go to place a marble headstone on her grave. As children, they were pretty much tossed into the wind by their party girl mother and absentee fathers and left to raise themselves. As such, they have developed survival skills that run the gamut from admirable to questionable and from formidable to dangerous.

Over the past year, the loss of their mother, as well as life in general, has worn their facades thin, tested them for durability and come up shaky. Esther’s children no longer know where the edge is, putting carefully shaped, colored and secreted soul wounds at risk of exposure. Curiously, the most estranged of the four is in motion while the leader of the pack is in stasis. They need one another, but will they be able to end their internecine childhood wars and put the future in their sails? Or, as Salman Rushdie writes in the opening lines to The Satanic Verses:

“To be born again,” sang Gabriel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, “first you have to die. Ho ji! Ho ji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs to fly. Tat-taa! Taka-thun! How to ever smile again, if first you will not cry?”

A talkback with the playwright moderated by Betty Hart will follow the reading.

For reservations or more information, please call (404) 441-2716 or e-mail to managing<at>workingtitleplaywrights.com.

Working Title Playwrights is proud to partner with Alliance Theatre Education and others to present Atlanta with this special upcoming event you can see here, or fly to Denmark!

Roberta Carreri is a master performer and teacher who has, for 33 years, been a member of the Danish theatre company Odin Teatret, directed by Eugenio Barba. Born in 1953 in Milan, Italy, Roberta has performed around the world in such Odin performances as Brecht’s Ashes, Kaosmos, Mythos, Andersen’s Dream, Judith, and Salt. Ms. Carreri gives workshops for actors all over the world that focus on the actor’s physical presence and the sonority of the voice. She has trained in physical theater practices from Japan, China, Bali and India.

TRACES IN THE SNOW is work demonstration that explores through physical presentation and narrative. Ms. Carreri’s professional autobiography, since 1978. The performance includes fragments of the performance “Judith” and explanations of Ms. Carreri’s approach to physical and vocal training.

Every performance tells a story. The characters belonging to the world of fiction become credible reality for the spectator thanks to the actor’s technique. In TRACES IN THE SNOW the technique itself becomes the protagonist. The actress carries on a dialogue with the secrets which precede and follow the building of a character and the creation of a performance – and its process, she exposes these secrets. The tension which characterises every drama is also present in this performance/work demonstration, due to the confrontation between the actress’s two forms of behaviour: daily and scenic.

You can check out the Odin Teatret’s Video Archive here.

If you weren’t able to make it, then you missed the opportunity to enjoy a wealth of food, drink and generosity, as friends and family of Allen Hagler gathered together to hear new plays by Curt Shannon and David Fisher in concert readings directed by Betty Hart. In addition, the dynamic duo of Johnny Drago and Emma Crandall wowed the crowd with back-handed compliments that some of us are still wincing from today (but in a happy, codependent way).Food was provided by Feast, Saba, Savage and The James Joyce Pub; Colleen Hilker, Jo Howarth and Perry Patrick.

Hooch was provided by Paris, Decatur and Bob Smith and Daphne Mintz, who swears she is no longer unhappy with her husband (today).

Space was provided by Academy Theatre.

Invaluable volunteer help was provided by Kim Brundidge, George Devours, Connie Melton, Robert Drake, Jim Walsh, Lainey Welsch and Jared Foust.

A cornucopia of donated gedunk made this silent auction and raffle a delightful mix of original art(s) and first edition and autographed copies, hand crafted jewelry, sweaters, knitted caps (Allen will soon be wearing a raspberry cap made by Josie Burgin-Lawson, thanks!), tickets from just about every theater in town, switch plates, thigh masters and more! If you came without a sense of humor, surely you left with one intact.

We haven’t stopped working for Allen’s cost of living. There were a number of items left out of the auction that will become available to purchase/bid on via an online auction. Stay tuned for more details.

We’ll keep collecting contributions via pledgie.com.

If I’ve missed anyone in my acknowledgments, I humbly apologize. Feel free to give yourselves a shout out in response to this missive. I just wanted to get something out to everyone, letting you know I HEART HEART HEART YOU ALL. Your love for Allen and your generous spirits are making his life that much simpler. Overwhelming, maybe, as he had no idea, but simpler.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Starting at—like, right now—6pm tonight at The Academy, you can graze on tasty treats, purchase something to drink and/or a fabulous compliment from playwright Johnny Drago, buy a chance to win a great raffle item, make a bid on a gift for you or someone you love and hear two new short plays from WTP playwrights Curt Shannon and Dave Fisher. Admission is $10 for those who can afford (every cent goes to Allen) or—for those who can’t—two cans for the Atlanta Food Bank.

Here’s a mere glimpse of the array of goods and services you can win in tonight’s silent auction and raffle:

* Gorgeous Fender Stratocaster American Deluxe
* Tickets from over 15 different Atlanta theaters
* Gift cards from: Feast in Decatur, Natural Body, Barnes & Noble, City Dog Market, The Mercantile, and more
* Unique opportunity to sit in on a casting session with Jody Feldman at The Alliance
* Wide array of personal training sessions – physical, yoga, audition and public speaking, freedom from artistic blocks, Photoshop for Dummies, and more
* Delicious weekend bunch prepared at your house
* Yummy Cookies and Pies delivered to your home
* Exotic floral arrangement
* Amazing handmade jewelry
* Gorgeous art and craftwork
AND LOTS, LOTS MORE!

Think of it as holiday shopping! Remember, “Hagler for the Holidays”…