Horizon Theatre Company Incorporated

Programs: During the past year, horizon served over 44,000 people with our season of atlanta, southeastern and world premieres of contemporary plays (300+ performances) and our artistic development, education and free community arts programs. Our mission is to connect people, inspire hope and promote positive change through contemporary theatre and the stories of our times. Horizon reaches a racially and age diverse audience in the metropolitan atlanta area. Mainstage plays produced included da kink in my hair by celebrated black writer, trey anthony, about the lives of black women set in a hair salon; the new south festival world premiere of freed spirits a horizon commissioned comedy set in an historic atlanta cemetery by daryl lisa fazio; the southeastern premiere of londons west end and broadway hit constellation by nick payne; the southeastern premiere of the musical comedy nobody loves you book & lyrics by tony-nominated itamar moses, music & lyrics by gaby alter; and the southeastern premiere of how to use a knife by will snider set in a melting pot of a restaurant kitchen. We also produced two holiday productions, madelines christmas by jennifer kirkeby and shirley mier (10th year of this family series production, a musical based on the classic childrens book); and the santaland diaries by david sedaris (19th year of this popular production for adults). Horizon garners attention on the national scene as a center for development of new plays and writers from our region. Our new south play festival, which just completed its 19th year, develops and produces new plays from, for and about the contemporary urban south, with an emphasis on plays by women, writers of color and writers based in the south. We have developed over 70 new works and the festival has been hailed by creative loafing as the place that finds and defines southern plays. This year, horizon theatre brought to the stage works from three playwrights at different stages of development. Our commissioned play freed spirits by atlanta writer daryl lisa fazio, a comedy set in atlantas historic oakland cemetery opened in september of 2016, as the culmination of two years of development. How black mothers say i love you, a new play by trey anthony who was our national new play network (nnpn) playwright-in-residence in 2017 and author of the very popular da kink in my hair, was workshopped and is scheduled to be produced in july of 2018. And we commissioned a new play by suehyla el-attar, nope. Thats my just my first name, about her experiences living and working as a first generation muslim arab in the south. Horizon theatre continued its initiative to expand its reach and build new audiences with our third annual production in the major city park, piedmont park. Nobody loves you was remounted for a 3-day run in the city park and reached 3000 people from across the metro region. Of that 3000, approximately 2000 attended for freemany of whom had never attended a live theatre production. Our education and outreach engages young audiences, families, and developing artists with theatre that speaks to their lives. Programs include our family series (plays that combine adult professionals with amateur children on stage for high quality, low cost family programming), new south young playwrights contest and festival (competitively selected intensive for high school and college age writers to develop skills in writing, critical thinking and creativity), horizon playwrights in schools (playwriting teaching residencies in middle and high schools) and apprentice & intern companies (training for college and post-college early career professionals). We hosted camp stardust for children in collaboration with our education partner atlanta childrens theatre. We also partner with the new school, an alternative high school in atlanta, where we provide both teaching services (headed by co-artistic director jeff adler) and space and production support. This year, horizon also continued to work on the partnership it initiated between five theatres, the atlanta intown theatre partnership (aitp), an organization designed to support and leverage the collective strengths of five mid-sized non-profits theatre in atlanta. This year, aitp worked to create a joint ticketing and marketing campaign among the five theatres that will launch in the next season. We were also pleased to continue for the second year our community place-making project, little five arts alive. This pilot project brought free outdoor arts events to the public plazas of little five points (l5p) for 26 weekends in the fall and spring. Funded by a creative place-making grant from artplace america, horizon brought together dozens of local artists and arts organizations to bring theatre, music, circus, dance, literary and visual arts performances and interactive events to the plazas for 10-20 hours each weekend, reaching over 10,000 people. The goal is to make l5p a more welcoming destination for our community and to showcase our local artistic community and increase the visibility of the arts in our neighborhood.