Offscript - Stage mother

One of Atlanta theater’s quiet champions



Jessica Linden reads spy thrillers and takes “cardio” belly-dancing lessons. She lives in Toco Hills and is twice divorced. She worked for IBM for 30 years and in the early 1960s wrote the code for some of the first computer programs for the Delta Air Lines reservation system. She’s a tall, silver-haired lady who never seems to stop smiling. And Atlanta theater wouldn’t exist without her.

Linden and people like her receive “thank you’s” in theater programs, but usually their contributions go unnoticed. They’re not the dedicated artists or underpaid playhouse staffers, but the hundreds of subscribers, volunteers and board members. You could call them the circulatory system of the art form, and Linden demonstrates the tireless efforts that keep Atlanta theaters’ blood pumping.

She freely gives her time and guesses she puts in 360 hours a year. Linden’s been an active member of the Actor’s Express board of directors since 1990, served on Horizon Theatre’s board for nine years and recently became a Friend of Theater Emory. Her volunteer work has run the gamut, from selling ice cream at the Inman Park Festival for Horizon Theatre, to serving on Actor’s Express’ search committees for artistic directors.

She’s equally generous with her money. Because she chose career over having children (a decision she doesn’t regret), Linden says she can give presents to theater companies instead of grandkids. She easily donates thousands of dollars a year to theaters, giving IBM stock to her favorite companies and cash donations to many others.

And she supports the art form by being an active, enthusiastic and paying member of the audience. She’s 64 years old, but her tastes don’t fit the stereotype for “senior audiences.” She admits that sometimes she sees “sweet little plays” like Steel Magnolias, but she’s mostly attracted to the kind of demanding, provocative shows that can scare more timid audiences away. Her favorite show in recent months was Actor’s Express’ The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, despite — or maybe because of — its themes of infidelity and bestiality.

Theater is not, however, a life-long love affair for Linden. She never acted or studied drama as a New Jersey high schooler or co-ed at Duke University. She graduated with a mathematics degree in 1962 and went to work at IBM three weeks later. She traces her interest in theater to when she lived in Philadelphia in the early 1970s and, as a kind of “employee of the month” award at the IBM office, won two tickets to Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company on Broadway. She was thrilled to see Elaine Stritch sing “The Ladies Who Lunch,” and the excitement stayed with her.

Linden’s heart now belongs to Atlanta theater more than Broadway, and she likes watching local actors and companies evolve over time. Sometimes she worries about the financial security of those she calls “her” theaters: “We still have companies hanging on by their eyeteeth,” she says.

Linden may be one out of hundreds, but even those numbers aren’t enough to keep Atlanta theater’s heart beating unassisted.

Don’t say that name

Perhaps the most famous, if twee, tradition in live theater concerns “The Scottish Play.” If you say “Macbeth” in a playhouse — and aren’t currently involved with a production of the tragedy — you invite calamity upon the theater. Historians date the “curse” back to the play’s opening night Aug. 7, 1606, when a boy named Hal Berridge, cast as Lady Macbeth, took a sudden fever and died before the curtain.

Stories of death, injury and other disasters have surrounded Macbeth for centuries — so why do so many theaters do the play? In recent years, Atlanta has seen Macbeth performed with wrestling puppets, ninja action figures and a “Simpsons” impressionist. The next few months feature productions at PushPush Theater (Sept. 2-Oct. 9), the Georgia Shakespeare Festival (Oct. 8-31) and the Shakespeare Tavern (in repertory in October).

Theaters push their luck because Macbeth is too good not to do. Of all Shakespeare’s plays, it offers the best combo of high art and juicy entertainment: some of the finest poetry and most deeply felt tragedy, alongside cool stuff like ghosts, witches and swordplay. (The Tavern and Festival shows are directed by stage combat specialists Drew Reeves and Drew Fraser, respectively).

Apparently, Atlanta theaters have not suffered misfortunes when they’ve previously staged Macbeth, but theater managers say they observe the rules of the superstition, anyway — just in case something wicked their way comes.

I said, don’t say that name

Atlanta playwright and spoken-word artist Karen Wurl has won Essential Theatre’s 2005 Playwriting Award for Miss Macbeth, a darkly comic look at uncontrolled ambition backstage at a university production of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Miss Macbeth will run in repertory Jan. 3-23 at Essential’s Festival of New American Theatre, along with Sam Shepard’s The Late Henry Moss and Lee Blessing’s Going to St. Ives at the 7 Stages Back Stage Theater.

curt.holman@creativeloafing.com


Off Script is a biweekly column on the Atlanta theater scene.