The Future is Back at Actors Theatre
by Tom James, MD
There are only a few artistic organizations that have enjoyed national recognition, fallen into commercial doldrums and then begun the rise to greatness with a renewed sense of purpose. Actors Theatre of Louisville( ATL) has experienced the exhilaration of being regarded as one of the top regional theaters in the country and being named State Theater of Kentucky. But the COVID-19 pandemic prevented in-theater personal experiences and the past financial issues forced ATL to downsize from its past vaunted position of prestige. The Apprentice Program was scrubbed, and ATL could no longer afford to maintain a strong Resident Artist constituency. At its cultural zenith of the 1990s and 2000s, ATL was able to mount up to 30 different offerings in a season. This included their fare of new and older works bolstered by the Ten-Minute Plays and the Humana Festival of New American Plays. Last year, ATL began recovering from the loss of local patronage and the financial debt incurred in past decades.
But now ATL is back!!! The much beloved version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol returns and will be performed in the Pamela Brown Auditorium Dec. 4-21. This new season is under the leadership of Emily Tarquin as Managing Director and Amelia Acosta Powell as Artistic Director. They are presenting a season that they anticipate will have something for everyone. This does include some of the community partners such as Kentucky Shakespeare Company, Redline Performing Arts and Faith Works. In the past, the selection of works by Eugene O’ Neill, Marsha Norman, Thornton Wilder, William Shakespeare and many notable playwrights, was mixed with new works, the“ Ten Minute Plays” and innovative theater techniques such as immersive theatre and gender issues. In the past, ATL was successful in bringing in large audiences because the focus was on the types of productions audiences wanted.
During COVID, ATL used social media to get theater into the homes of subscribers; but when on-stage productions could return, they moved to themes of social justice, gender roles and concerns of violence by established authorities. Sets became smaller, and the majority of performances were in the smaller theater spaces of the building. This year, the Board of ATL has encouraged the new managers to create a balance of well-known pieces and new, more experimental pieces. The oldies include A Christmas Carol, Shakespeare’ s Comedy of Errors and Jane Austen’ s Emma and Broadway pieces such as Dreamgirls. One world premiere of FDR’ s Very Happy Hour earlier this year was an example of immersive theatre with audience engagement. There will be a Storytelling( R) Evolution Festival with new and experimental
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