Pop Smart - The 2007-2008 theatrical season: Highs, lows and curves

The convention that the “theatrical season” runs from fall to spring should probably be put to pasture, since so many playhouses fail to observe it. Even if you’re a traditionalist, when do you mark the end of Atlanta’s theatrical season? My best guess would be some time between the opening night of Dad’s Garage Theatre’s final main stage show, and the start of Georgia Shakespeare’s summer repertory. But do you place summer shows with the season that just ended, or the one that’s about to begin?

The playhouse with the highest success rate this year was the Alliance Theatre, which fully lived up to its 2007 Tony Award for Regional Theatre. Admittedly its lavish musicals – The Women of Brewster Place and Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies (plus the Alliance Children’s Theatre’s Seussical) featured more energy than surprises, although Ladies included a remarkably talented eight-person cast. Nevertheless, Doubt lived up to its reputation as a theatrical firecracker and the Hertz Stage presented one stupendous show after another: the suave revue Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris; the achingly lovely vision of Greek myth Eurydice; and the earthy family tale In the Red and Brown Water. The latter proved to be the fourth and best show so far from the theater’s Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition.

The Hertz also provided rental space to the year’s most memorable disaster, Curvy Widow starring Cybill Shepherd. The TV and movie star seemed unprepared – but not unlikeable – as she struggled with an inert monologue play about dating at a Certain Age. The show became something of a must-see train wreck not despite its faults, but because of them.