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Fall Arts Preview: Not The Usual Suspects
By Kathy Janich
 Atlanta has two big cultural events for gays and lesbians. One is Pride, held in the summertime. The other is Out on Film, a November festival of feature films, shorts, documentaries and narratives with the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender moviegoer in mind. And, as spokesman Garrin Hirschhorn points out: "You don’t have to be gay or lesbian to attend."
The lineup for this year’s festival, running Nov. 10-16, will be firmed up by the beginning of October. To get an idea of the sorts of films offered, though, you just have to look at the 2005 lineup. It included the Felicity Huffman Oscar-nominated feature, TransAmerica, along with lesser-known titles like That Man: Peter Berlin and Sevigne (Julia Berkowitz), pictured. It included a mini-African-American film fest within the fest, likely to be reprised this year, Hirschhorn says. Expect about 60 screenings in this, Out on Film’s 19th year, all at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema on Monroe Drive.
Out on Film is produced by IMAGE Film & Video Center, a nonprofit organization founded in 1977 and dedicated to fostering independent film and video as "unique forms of expression." They’re the same folks who produce the annual 10-day Atlanta Film Festival. IMAGE also offers screenings, workshops, monthly salons for member and nonmember networking, fiscal sponsorships, a quarterly newsletter, a weekly e-mail newsletter and equipment access. Out on Film details: www.outonfilm.com or (404) 352-4225.
 Theatre du Reve, Atlanta’s only French-language theater company, began as the dream of actor Carolyn Cook (left in picture), who fell in love with French drama during her student days in Paris. Beginning in 1996, the company has performed one show a year in French, with an English synopsis in the program. Some of Atlanta’s finest actors work with the company: Cook, Out of Hand’s Adam Fristoe and Ariel de Man, and Georgia Shakespeare’s Chris Kayser and Park Krausen (right), to name a few. They have done work by the absurdist Eugene Ionesco, the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre and the famous satirist Moliere.
This season, Thetre du Reve offers two projects. The first comprises Va et Vient (Catastrophe, Come and Go) and Pas (Footfalls) both by Beckett, done in French and English at 7 Stages (Sept. 29-Aug. 8). The director Walter Asmus, a world-renowned Beckett expert, will direct Cook and Krausen in Pas. The second project comes in October and November in conjunction with the High Museum of Art’s Louvre Atlanta exhibition. Thetre du Reve will create a theater piece to celebrate the beginning of the three-year Atlanta-Paris collaboration.
The little-company-that-could also marks a change in leadership this season. Krausen replaces Cook as artistic director; Cook becomes director of education. De Man becomes the company’s managing director. "It’s growing," Cook says of her dream, "and I’m so proud." www.theatredureve.com or (404) 508-4866.
 Smart. Bold. Gutsy. Theater. That’s how Synchronicity Performance Group describes itself and, if you’ve seen any of its productions, you know the description fits. Founded in 1997, and run by co-producing artistic directors Rachel May, Hope Mirlis and Michele Pearce, Synchronicity sees its niche as twofold: doing plays that emphasize collaboration, with a focus on women, and getting involved in the community.
The company’s 2006 season includes a national premiere by emerging playwright Abi Basch, four regional premieres and a remount of last season’s popular family musical, A Year With Frog and Toad. Synchronicity also will present a national new-play festival for women playwrights and expand its Playmaking for Girls program, which takes theater to teenage girls in detention centers and, in turn, helps the girls create their own pieces. This is also the pilot year for a new after-school program.
The season, which began in May with Luis Alfaro’s Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, continues with A Nervous Smile by John Belluso (through Sept. 23); Voices Underwater by Basch in November; Bunnicula, another family musical, in September; and Frog and Toad in December.
In A Nervous Smile, a teenaged girl is trapped in a body twisted by severe cerebral palsy, while her parents ponder her future. The piece raises fundamental questions about the nature of parenthood, love, desire and what it means to be a disabled person in America. Pearce, who directs, has a special-needs child of her own. Zoe, now 8, was born with a rare syndrome called Wolf-Hirshhorn, which makes walking, talking and growing a challenge (read about Pearce and Zoe on the Synchronicity Web site). Belluso, who had a rare bone-strength disorder, used a wheelchair until his death last spring. He was in his mid-30s.
For Smile, Synchronicity is partnering with United Cerebral Palsy of Georgia, FOCUS (Families of Children Under Stress) and VSA Arts of Georgia. The company performs in the Backstage Space at 7 Stages in Little Five Points. www.synchrotheatre.com. (404) 325-5168.
For more events coming up this arts season, pick up a copy of the September issue of Atlanta INtown available now!
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