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Back in 1993, Sabina Maja Angel and I foundedmultiShades.atlanta in order to create new work, both interdisciplinary andmulti-media, and to demonstrate a working model for women artists that includedtrue diversity of race, life-style, and perspective. Those were heady idealsand led for the next few years to our presenting in some form over sixty newpieces at theatres such as Actors Express, bars such as Eddies Attic, stolen spaces such as the roof and glass elevators of (then) Colony Square, an abandoned cotton mill warehouse, and a studio + pasture at The Goat Farm. We moved the audience around the floors and “forced” participation in a condemned house near Agnes Scott. We survived a dusty lecture hall and rainy courtyard in Ireland, an echoing concert balcony at the 1996 Olympics, and the broken AC in our church pew theatre at Charleston’s Spoleto Festival USA. At the time, no one in Atlanta was doing “our” kind of work which often included film, video, ritual, and soundscapes. But, that was then. Lately there has been an exciting wave of upstart companies piloted by women artists that focus on new work and “nontraditional spaces”.

A great example is Found Stages Theatre. Playwright (and DG member) Neeley Gossett and director Nichole Palmietto formed their company in 2014 to create new work for sites such as the outdoors, warehouses, art galleries, and living rooms. “We like stories that give people a reason to get off the couch and leave the house. We like plays that aren’t complete until the audience gets there…We like shared meals and shared experiences.” Their inaugural production (September 2014), and impetus for the new partnership, was Gossett’s Beulah Creek. “As a writer, I want to tell stories about undefined relationships between women…in addition, camp meetings and tent revivals have always fascinated me.” When these two artists first began talking about putting Beulah Creek on its feet, says Palmietto, “We knew we wanted to find a way to give the audience the full sense of being in an outdoor tent revival. While the play is set in 1936, the story itself—like the beauty of the outdoors—is a timeless one…Dunwoody Nature Center offered a perfect natural space for the story.” After securing the space, Neeley rewrote the play to take advantage of the mixed terrain that includes forest pathways, a stream, and sculpture-like rock beds. “As the characters solve the dilemma at hand in real time, the audience will journey with them to different locations, guided by a chorus of women through song and candlelight.” The play ends with audience members and characters sharing a dessert of cornbread and milk. The result was both captivating, thought-provoking, and a creative kick in my butt.

Another group, Karibu Performing Arts LLC (Songs of Karibu), was co-founded by our Atlanta Region Young Ambassador Amina S. McIntyre. Currently Karibu’s Managing Director, she is also a playwriting intern at Horizon Theatre Company and a Religion and Theatre grad student at Emory. McIntyre says Kaibu is about “…exploring the juxtaposition of identity and current events, flourishing and growing in how we see ourselves while navigating how others see us.” The group strives to heal society as it moves toward being an “established company…that produces major works in unique spaces…” About her own work, McIntyre says she likes to write about “everyday people, regardless of the time period. What is true to that character and their world?” Her current project is a play about black expatriate sisters in 1950s Paris who are forced to face their own choices after the death of Emmitt Till and looming Civil Rights Movement. Asked how a strong faith informs her writing, McIntyre responds that “…some days they are a happy marriage, others a bitter separation. Never a divorce.” She goes on to say that “My faith has taught me how to delve deeper into the background…I ask…who people are, [and] why are they called to this moment …” In league with the many ministers in her family, McIntyre is an ordained Elder in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. In response to questions about how she juggles her many different obligations, she says, “With grace and humility. …the key to all of it is flexibility… [and] being willing to admit when assistance is needed.” As for McIntyre’s legacy as a Young Ambassador, she hopes to “create a networking and marketing template… [for] Atlanta theatre professionals…”. Finally her advice to other young playwrights is to “Write what moves you.” To that I say Amen and thanks be to my new DG partner.

pturner@dramatistsguild.com 

Photos (above): Beulah Creek by Neeley Gossett. Photographer: Annie Elliott

Photo (above): Amina McIntyre.