The heat is on — not only in terms of the temperature outside, but also in terms of activity on Atlanta’s stages. As in recent years, metro troupes have been almost as busy in the summer as they are during the traditional season launch of fall.
Here’s a quick glance at two shows opening this week and two recently opened ones worthy of your attention:
- Libby Whittemore returns to Actor's Express for her final Libby's at the Express cabaret concert of the season, June 18-21, with a salute to the varied music of the 1970s.
The show will include songs by Karen Carpenter, Elton John, the Bee Gees, Linda Ronstadt, Roberta Flack, Chicago, Three Dog Night, Cher, the Eagles, the Doobie Brothers, Jim Croce, the Spinners and the Beatles.
Performances are at 7:30 p.m. $40. 887 W. Marietta St., Suite J-107, Atlanta. 404-607-7469, actors-express.com.
- "All the world's a stage …," the Bard famously wrote in "As You Like It," which is next on the Atlanta Shakespeare Company stage at the Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse.
Lovers Rosalind and Orlando are played by Dani Herd and Jonathan Horne in performances running June 19 through July 12.
7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 6:30 p.m. Sundays. $15-$36. 499 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-874-5299, www.shakespearetavern.com.
- Atlanta's summer swelter is not enough for Serenbe Playhouse, which is turning up the heat a few notches with "A Streetcar Named Desire."
“I have been dying to produce a Tennessee Williams play since day one of Serenbe Playhouse,” executive/artistic director Brian Clowdus has said. “It’s the absolute perfect setting and the material is still so hot and groundbreaking,”
His partners in transforming a patch of the tiny south Fulton County community of Chattahoochee Hills into sultry New Orleans are Matthew Davis as Stanley Kowalski, Deborah Bowman as Blanche Du Bois, Ann Marie Gideon as Stella Kowalski and Daniel Parvis as Mitch Mitchell.
Performances through June 28 are on the Serenbe development's outdoor Art Farm stage, constructed of recycled shipping containers. (See Bert Osborne's review on myajc.com or in Thursday Living.)
Shows are 8:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays. $30; $25 students. 770-463-1110, www.serenbeplayhouse.com.
- Some will attend Atlanta Lyric Theatre's production of "Barnum" to hear time-tested classic songs such as "Come Follow the Band," "The Colors of My Life" and "There's a Sucker Born Ev'ry Minute."
What may surprise them in director Alan Kilpatrick's colorful spin on born promoter P.T. Barnum's life is the show's authentic circus grit. That's not a coincidence: Several of the cast members have trained at the Alpharetta studio CirqueFreaks (soon to be renamed Akrosphere Aerial & Circus Arts). (See the review on myajc.com or in Friday's Go Guide.)
Through June 28. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays; 2 p.m. June 27. $35-$55. Cobb Civic Center's Jennie T. Anderson Theatre, 548 S. Marietta Parkway, Marietta. 404-377-9948, www.atlantalyrictheatre.com.
