Best Play

Theater’s goal is to put the audience into a new place, another’s shoes, another time. If done well, viewers forget themselves entirely and are transformed. Michael Haverty and Erwin Maas’ INSIDE I, which ran this spring at 7 Stages, combined puppets, live-feed cameras, and live actors to put the audience inside the experience of Ben, a child on the autistic spectrum who uses his iPhone to connect with the world. Three moving television screens on the stage transported the audience from inside a car driving down the highway to the inside of an MRI, and beyond. Immersive sound design combined with these visual elements created an incredible sense of overstimulation designed to mirror an autistic person’s daily life experiences. Familiar interactions like kids fighting over a ball created relatable, sometimes heart-wrenching, moments. This powerful and innovative multimedia show stayed with us long after it was over, and changed our perspective about our fellow man. 1105 Euclid Ave. N.E. 404-523-7647. www.7stages.org. less...

Gorgeous voices, awesome sets, amazing music, outrageous drama. The Atlanta Opera brought the famous story of emotionally fragile Scottish lass Lucia and her doomed love for a man from a rival clan to the stage for its November 2011 production of Lucia Di Lammermoor, and gave Atlanta one of its most romantic and exciting nights at the theater in ages. Soprano Georgia Jarman showed off some impressive vocal gymnastics in the role of Lucia, and the cast, chorus, and Atlanta Opera orchestra sounded polished and lively. Between-scene projections of Sir Walter Scott's source text made us feel all post-modern and fuzzy inside, while Erhard Rom's set designs had a wonderful cinematic flare: There was something distinctly Southern in the decaying mansions, moss-covered forests, and crumbling tombstones. The evening was capped off with gallons of stage blood and a beautiful bel canto aria. less...

Despite the risk of burning out some of Atlanta's best actors through prolonged exposure to scorching family drama, the Alliance Theatre should make an annual tradition of its production of Tracy Letts' August: Osage County. Director Susan V. Booth cultivated a sense of family connection by filling the cast with mainstays of the Atlanta theater scene, including Georgia Shakespeare Artistic Director Richard Garner, 7 Stages Artistic Director Del Hamilton and grande dame Brenda Bynum, who left retirement to play a vicious, drug-addicted matriarch of a squabbling Oklahoma family. August: Osage County presented the Weston clan as a dysfunctional social microcosm, with blood-sport banter that made the three-hour running time pass like a rocket. Alliance Theatre, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. 404-733-4650. alliancetheatre.org. less...

In recent years, live theater has tried to tap the excitement over digital technology, social networking and other trends with the potential to change the world. In the spring, the always-innovative Out of Hand Theatre, collaborating with Dutch theatrical ensemble the Lunatics, presented the "mass MP3 experiment" Group Intelligence. Held on Emory's campus and at Centennial Park, the events used MP3 recordings to give the audience/participants instructions to do crazy stunts, contemplate their place in the universe and come together for complex tasks. Like a flash mob with a message of environmental sustainability, Group Intelligence pushed the boundaries of traditional theater. outofhandtheater.com. less...

Ironically, Alliance Theatre Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition finalist FAIR USE proved to be more felicitous and satisfying than any of the Kendeda's storied winners to date. Actor's Express' Freddie Ashley snapped up Sarah Gubbins' ingenious and witty examination of workplace romance and intellectual property, which demonstrates its own points by turning into a nimble riff on Cyrano de Bergerac for the online, gay-friendly age. Fair Use proves that a play doesn't need historical settings or heavyweight subject matter to explore rich ideas and the nature of relationships. less...

It's difficult to envision an Atlanta theater scene without PEACHTREE BATTLE in it. Premiering Sept. 7, 2001, the comedy about a Buckhead socialite's son getting hitched to a Hooters waitress became the longest-running play in Atlanta history, leaving Driving Miss Daisy in the dust over a total of seven years, 44 extensions and more than 120,000 patrons at the Ansley Park Playhouse. Having established such a successful, frequently updated crowd-pleaser, playwrights John Gibson and Anthony Morris retired the show earlier this month to focus on the potential big-screen version, as well as their long-awaited next show, A Sunday Afternoon at Loehmann's. After the battle, they deserve a salute. www.peachtreebattle.net. less...

For sheer gonzo creativity, combined with an impressive grounding in American literature and Southern culture, AS I LAY DYING revealed a more fertile imagination than any 10 other stage plays. The inaugural production of Haverty Marionettes, Michael Haverty's puppet-based adaptation of William Faulkner's classic novel drew influences from sources as diverse as folk art, carnival games and old-timey music. As I Lay Dying offered a unique prism for reviewing Faulkner's stream-of-consciousness tale of 1930s Mississippi, and established Haverty Marionettes as an intriguing company to watch in the future. www.havertymarionettes.org. less...

When Atlanta playwright/novelist Pearl Cleage paid theatrical tribute to the late Coretta Scott King, she chose to focus on the Civil Rights leader's legacy rather than the details of her life. Cleage's play A SONG FOR CORETTA, staged last winter at 7 Stages, presented five African-American women standing in line outside Ebenezer Baptist Church to pay their final respects to King. Their subsequent conversation and conflicts shed light on the successes of the Civil Rights Movement as well as its unfinished business, and made A Song for Coretta far more thoughtful and knotty than the kind of safe, standard biographical drama we could have expected. www.pearlcleage.net. less...

In David Mamet’s crass classic Glengarry Glen Ross, Ricky Roma rules the roost as the alpha male real-estate salesman. Roma’s been famously portrayed by such tough Italian-Americans as Joe Mantegna and Al Pacino. At the Alliance Hertz Stage’s production of Glengarry Glen Ross, African-American actor NEAL GHANT redefined the role, embodying the character’s challenge to the old-guard power structure without ever making the casting seem like a gimmick. Ghant played another young Turk in Mamet’s comedy A Life in the Theatre for Theatre in the Square, and proved similarly deft at alternating between menace, respect and a mesmerizing ability to “sell” colleagues, clients and audiences alike. less...