BWW Interviews: Buford Welcomes Award-Winning GTA SouthernStage to New Home

For over three decades, the award-winning Gainesville Theatre Alliance (GTA), a collaboration between the recently renamed University of North Georgia and Brenau University, has been one of the premiere theatre's in Georgia. While many of GTA's shows feature guest professional actors, directors, and designers, the majority of the on and off-stage work is done by students. However, in 2012, in a collaboration with the city of Buford, they founded GTA SouthernStage, a professional resident company in the new Buford Community Center, Town Park, & Theatre. Through April 28th, GTA SouthernStage is concluding its first season with an outstanding professional production of "Alfred Hitchock's The 39 Steps" (read BWW Atlanta's glowing review: "You'd Be Psycho to Miss Amazing 39 STEPS at GTA's SouthernStage"), and has announced that a production of the recent Broadway hit "Lombardi" will open their second season in their new home in August.

After two-years of construction and a $15 million price tag, the Buford Community Center opened last July. The sprawling new complex contains meeting, banquet and classrooms, a 4,400 square foot ballroom, an amphitheater, and the state-of-the-art 290-seat Sylvia Beard Theatre. As the doors were opening to the public, Community Center Director Todd Cleveland knew that he needed to find the right group to serve as the theater's anchor. "We wanted to partner with an organization that had the knowledge, talent, and experience to assist us in getting our theatre up and running," Cleveland said. "GTA has long been known for their outstanding theatrical performances and skilled graduates."

That is when Cleveland contacted GTA's Artistic and Managining Director for the past 23 years, Jim Hammond. It didn't take long for Hammond to become enamored with the new facility. "The theatre is just breathtaking. The designers got everything right," Hammond said. "It's beautiful, it's intimate and perfectly equipped to meet our needs."

GTA invited three professional groups to be a part of their four-show first season, with "The 39 Steps" closing the year. Last October, they welcomed Atlanta artist Brad Sherrill who performed his Biblically-based one-man shows "the gospel of John" and "Red Letter Jesus" (Sherrill also performed "Red Letter Jesus" at Stage Door Players in March). In January they welcomed Minneapolis company Live Action Set and their show "The 7-Shot Symphony", a Spaghetti Western billed as "the love child of Quentin Tarantino and Cirque du Soleil." Their final guest production was fisherman turned playwright and actor James DeVita's one-man show "In Acting Shakespeare."

Each show helped develop GTA's new audience in Buford before they produced their own show, a cost-effective way to prepare for a new endeavor. When Hammond first saw the new theater, he immediately thought of "The 39 Steps" because the four-person show with numerous scene changes was perfect for the space and it was not a show that GTA would normally produce. "We don't do anything that small," GTA Marketing Manager Beth Kendall said. "We have so many students who are anxious to get on stage, that it's really hard for us to do contemporary, small-cast shows."

So, with the perfect show for their new space, Hammond, who also directed "The 39 Steps," began to feel at home. "The space creates the potential for great work, and that was the charge we received from the leaders of Buford; 'Create work that transcends the building,'" he said. The audiences in Buford have found GTA's first SouthernStage show so transcendent that the company has extended its initial two-week run to four. You can now see the show, starring Josh Carpenter, Elizabeth Wells Berkes, Suzi Award winner Jimi Kocina, and Matt Magill through April 28th.

One of the unique aspects of this new partnership is that it will allow GTA students even more access to some of Atlanta, and the country's, best Working Theatre artists. Each of the professional actors and designers brought in to work on "The 39 Steps" has already give master classes for GTA students, a practice that will continue in the future.

"The tremendous success of our graduates (upon graduation) has a lot to do with their contact with the professional guest artists who come to GTA to teach, act, direct and design. Artists like Richard Garner (Georgia Shakespeare co-founder and Producing Artistic Director), Alan Kilpatrick (Atlanta Lyric Theatre Associate Artistic Director), Lisa Adler (Horizon Theatre Co-Artistic and Producing Director) and Tess Kincaid (Suzi-winner for Best Lead Actress in a Play for each of the last three years) serve as role models and mentors for our students and help them take the next steps in their career," Hammond said. "SouthernStage will greatly increase the number of professional mentors our students will come to know and will expose them to more extraordinary theatre."

In addition to its Buford home, GTA also stages shows in five theaters across the Lake Lanier area, and at a recent performance of "The 39 Steps," Hammond announced that "Alice in Wonderland," "Guys and Dolls," "Chicago," "The Glass Menagerie," and "Sense and Sensibility" will be a part of GTA's 2013-2014 season. He also said that the full season would be announced in the coming weeks.

To get tickets for the near-perfect "The 39 Steps" call 678-717-3624 or visit GTA SoutherStage's website.

Photo: Matt Magill, Elizabeth Wells Berkes,Josh Carpenter, Jimi Kocina
Photo Credit: Simpson Custom Photography

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