Founded in 1968, the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, is the preeminent theater in the Southeastern United States. A past recipient of the Regional Theatre Tony Award for achievement in programming, education, and community interaction, the Alliance Theatre has premiered more than 100 original productions and offers a variety of acting classes and educational programming for adults, youth, and families. Its notable premieres include Tony Award-winning productions like The Color Purple, Aida, and The Last Night of Ballyhoo.
The Alliance Theatre presents several shows spanning diverse themes each year. The 2022-23 season, thus far, featured showings of A Christmas Carol, the Pulitzer Prize finalist Everybody, and The Incredible Book Eating Boy. This summer, the Alliance will show Water for Elephants, a world premiere musical based on Sara Green’s best-selling novel of the same name, from June 4 to July 9 on the Coca-Cola Stage. It is the final show of the theater company’s 54th season.
The following are five things to know about Water for Elephants and its production at the Alliance.
The Plot
Water for Elephants follows the journey of Jacob Jankowski, a former veterinary student who, in search of a new life, arrives at a traveling circus via a mysterious train. August, the charismatic ringmaster of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, provides Jacob with a job and a place to stay and eventually pairs him with his wife, Marlena, to train the circus’ new star attraction: Rosie the elephant.
Jacob and Marlena spend time together training the elephant and eventually fall in love. August becomes suspicious of Jacob and Marlena and later finds out about their affair, threatening to once again derail Jacob’s life. Romance, deception, and magic are the key themes and motifs of the musical.
Previously Adapted for Film
Although this will be the stage world premiere of Water for Elephants, it isn’t the first time the source material has been adapted for a different medium. Francis Lawrence directed a film adaptation of Water for Elephants in 2011. The film starred Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon as Jacob and Marlena, respectively. Christoph Waltz portrayed August. Other cast members included Paul Schneider, Sam Anderson, and Stephen Monroe Taylor. The film won the People’s Choice Award for Favorite Drama Movie.
Directed by Jessica Stone
Emerging director and longtime Broadway actress Jessica Stone is directing Water for Elephants at the Alliance. Stone, who also has more than a dozen film and TV acting credits, has appeared in Broadway productions such as Anything Goes, The Odd Couple, Smell of the Kill, and How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. She made her Broadway debut in Grease in 1994.
Stone was an assistant director for Match (2004) and directed her first Broadway musical, Kimberly Akimbo, in 2022. The critically acclaimed production, which follows a New Jersey teenager with an aging condition that makes her look as if she’s in her 70s, debuted at the Booth Theatre in November. Mark Kennedy of the Associated Press called it “one of the best musicals on Broadway this season.”
Scored by PigPen Theatre Co.
PigPen Theatre Co. created the score for Water for Elephants. The award-winning Broadway licensing creators have produced original music for their own albums as well as film, TV, and stage projects. They have also produced their own plays, for which they received critic’s picks from The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and The Boston Globe, among other publications. The Huffington Post ranked their debut album, Bremen, as the No. 10 album of 2012.
PigPen Theatre Co. was the first group to receive the top prize at the NYC Fringe Festival in back-to-back years and won IRNE and Jeff Awards for their stage productions. They produced music for the film Ricki and the Flash, starring Meryl Streep, and are working on Water for Elephants with Rick Elice and Peter Schneider.
The Cast
Theatergoers will have to wait until June to see Water for Elephants at the Alliance. However, the musical was shown in a pair of sneak presentations in New York City in the summer of 2022, with cast members getting a chance to perform their roles in front of an audience. The cast for the show includes Sebastian Arcelus, Isabelle McCalla, and Bill Irwin.
Arcelus’ Broadway acting credits include Elf, Jersey Boys, and Wicked. He also appeared in the TV shows House of Cards and Madam Secretary. McCalla has appeared in prior regional shows at the Alliance and recently concluded her first national tour as Jasmine in Aladdin. Irwin, meanwhile, is a theater veteran whose credits include The Goat, On Beckett, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The Venue
The Coca-Cola Stage, the Alliance’s main performance venue, is an intimate space with a curved seating bowl and balcony that has a capacity of 650. A recent $32 million renovation project moved seating 15 feet closer to the stage and included the addition of a pair of sensory-friendly spaces. The venue received the Distinguished AIA Interior Architecture Award in 2021.