After a year of alternate programming, including streaming and drive-in productions, Atlanta's Alliance Theatre will return to live, in-person performances with an eight-show season on the theatre's two stages. The 53rd season lineup includes four world premieres, two musicals, and a new staging of its annual production of A Christmas Carol.

The new musical Darlin' Cory will open the Alliance season on the Coca-Cola Stage, with performances beginning September 8. Inspired by local lore and set in 1930s Appalachia, the musical features a book by playwright-novelist Phillip DePoy and a folk-country score, with music by Grammy-winning Sugarland frontman Kristian Bush. Susan V. Booth directs.

Alliance will usher in the holiday season with a new adaptation of A Christmas Carol, with new set designs and new costumes. Leora Morris will direct the new Daid H. Bell script based on the Dickens classic. A Christmas Carol will run November 12–December 24. The spring half of the season will see productions of Lydia R. Diamond's Toni Stone, the world premiere of Bina's Six Apples by Lloyd Suh, and a to-be-announced world premiere musical directed by Tony winner Kenny Leon.

Meanwhile, the Hertz season kicks off October 8 with The New Black Fest's Hands Up: 7 Playwrights, 7 Testaments, followed by Club Hertz Live, a December concert series featuring local musicians. The Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition winning play, Dream Hou$e by Eliana Pipes, gets its world premiere in January.

In addition to the regular season, Alliance will produce five shows in the Kathy & Ken Bernhardt Theatre for the Very Young season: a streaming production of Sounds of the West End, available August 17 2021–May 21, 2022; The Curious Cardinal, streaming October 12–May 31; and in-person performances of (Knock, Knock), opening December 2; Do You Love the Dark? in January; and In My Granny's Garden in March.

For more information, visit AllianceTheatre.org.