Tag: Woodruff Arts Center

One of the most gratifying aspects of my years at WABE was connecting listeners to our city’s cultural events. A vibrant arts community can uplift and enrich the lives of Atlantans. The challenge today is to help these organizations thrive: Funding is essential from various sources. With money allocated to the arts, we can all take pride in a city made greater by its cultural organizations.

Nonprofit arts organizations in metro Atlanta are facing financial challenges as government grants, corporate sponsorships, and Covid-era relief funding have dried up while costs have risen and audience participation remains below pre-pandemic levels. In response, arts leaders have banded together through weekly meetings and the coalition Arts Capital | Atlanta, which seeks to raise $100 million to stabilize the sector and ensure smaller organizations in particular can survive.

Craig Richards first ate at Table 1280, the now-defunct restaurant in the Woodruff Arts Center, two decades ago. He fell in love with the minimalist space, noting its iconic location and importance to the Alanta Symphony Orchestra, Alliance Theatre, and High Museum of Art. When the opportunity arose to bring new life to the space, he jumped on it.

For one weekend this month, Atlanta, like Chicago, will flood with green. But lacking a river as we do, it’s Peachtree Street that will run emerald when the Irish and their friends march in celebration of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. This year marks the 141st St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Atlanta, making it one of the longest continuously running parades in the city.

The evening’s wide-ranging conversations illustrated both the city’s storied history, and its anxious, contemporary self-analysis. Perhaps no city in America is more eager to establish where it goes from here.

When Woodruff Arts Center's President and CEO, Doug Shipman, greets me on the fourth floor, he’s dressed in a plaid blazer, sneakers, and colorful socks in the style of a cool politician or a millennial tech magnate. It’s a fitting look for someone who both wields immense power and embraces nontraditional priorities, namely to diversify Woodruff Arts Center.

After more than 100 world premieres, the Alliance Theatre was overdue for its first major renovation. In June 2017, crews began the Midtown venue’s $32-million makeover, which opened this January.

Bring the little ones to Toddler Takeover, an arts festival especially for kids at the Woodruff Arts Center, or listen to live music and peruse the vendors at the 35th annual Sweet Auburn Springfest.

With the news that SunTrust Bank had been acquired by BB&T and that the Turner Broadcasting name will soon be a thing of the past under AT&T's acquisition of WarnerMedia, many Atlanta nonprofits are asking questions about what these changes mean for corporate support of the arts in the city.

Say goodbye to the Georgia Dome, drive through the Callaway Gardens' forest of lights, and watch the Alliance Theatre's reimagining of Alice in Wonderland.