A few items-to-know:
• These choices come from professional theaters only — the 19 companies eligible for Suzi Bass awards, plus Out Front Theatre, which is in its first season and gets a pass on that requirement. • With this writing, we’ve already missed The Mountaintop at Aurora Theatre and the Alliance’s world premiere musical Troubadour, plus Theatrical Outfit’s inaugural Unexpected Play Reading Festival — or maybe you were smart enough to partake. Let’s hope. • Shows in metro Atlanta tend to open and close in clumps, which can make seeing everything you’d like to see a bit challenging. Do your best. • Finally, this list is subjective. It’s full of my choices and I’m equally comfortable and excited about them. Will every single thing be great or to your taste? Probably not. But isn’t that the fun of going to the theater?
FEBRUARY The One and Only Ivan | Synchronicity Theatre THROUGH FEB. 26. You might remember Ivan the gorilla from his time at Zoo Atlanta. Katherine Applegate’s 2013 Newbery Medal-winning novel revisits his earlier days, particularly his 27 years in a glass-and-concrete cage in a Tacoma, Wash., shopping center, where he didn’t set foot outside or see another of his kind for almost three decades. This adaptation uses actors who bring the animals — Ivan, elephants named Stella and Ruby, a dog named Bob — alive through movement, headpieces, masks, costumes and puppetry. Julie Skrzypek (last season’s Fancy Nancy) directs. The sad — and beautiful — story is part of Synchronicity’s Family Series. $15-$22. Tickets, details at 404.484.8636 or https://synchrotheatre.com/.
Too Heavy for My Pocket | Alliance Theatre THROUGH FEB. 26. A world premiere. The 2017 winner of the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition is Jiréh Breon Holder’s script about two couples in 1960s Nashville, dealing with civil unrest and the advent of the Freedom Riders. The playwright, a Memphis native and Morehouse College graduate, recently earned his M.F.A. in playwriting from the Yale School of Drama and is working at Emory University through a playwriting fellowship. In the Alliance’s Hertz Stage. $20-$42. Details, tickets at 404.733.5000 or https://alliancetheatre.org/ production/too-heavy-your-pocket.
ATLANTA’S PERFORMING ARTS PUBLICATION 43