• 60th Anniversary
  • News & Culture
    • Arts & Events
    • Great Reads
    • Atlanta After Dark
    • Atlanta 500
    • Groundbreakers
    • Women Making a Mark
  • Food & Drink
    • Restaurant Reviews
    • 50 Best Tacos
    • 123 Things to Eat on Buford Highway
    • 75 Best Restaurants in Atlanta
    • 50 Best Bars
    • Best Barbecue
    • Best Breakfast
  • Home
    • Artists & Galleries
    • Design Advice
    • Design News
    • Gardens
    • Real Estate
    • Neighborhoods
    • Real Estate All-Stars
    • Sponsored: Preferred HOME Partner
  • Life & Style
    • Style
    • School Guide
    • Health & Wellness
    • Top Doctors
    • Top Dentists
    • Sponsored: Physician & Dentist Profiles
    • Buckhead Guidebook
  • Travel
    • Southbound
    • 50 Best Things to Do in Georgia
    • Hidden Georgia
    • North Georgia Mountains
    • Great Georgia Hikes
    • Jekyll Island
    • Georgia Travel Guide
  • Best of ATL
    • Eat
    • Drink
    • See
    • Do
    • Buy
    • Readers’ Choice
  • Magazine
    • Subscription Center
    • Newsletters
    • Digital Editions
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Pitch Us
    • Advertise
    • Custom Media
    • Give Atlanta
    • Events
      • Upcoming Events
      • Past Events
        • 2020 Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Designer Showhouse
        • Atlanta Baby and Beyond
        • Atlanta Magazine Whiskey Festival 2019
        • DINES: A Taste of the City’s Best Restaurants
        • 2019 Modern Style Showhome
        • Best Burger Battle
        • Pinewood Forest Idea Home
        • 2018 Modern Style Showhouses
      • Event Photos
    • Employment
      • Careers
      • Internships
    • Archives
    • Where to Find
Sign in
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Create an account
Privacy and Cookies Policy
Sign up
Welcome!Register for an account
A password will be e-mailed to you.
Privacy and Cookies Policy
Password recovery
Recover your password
Search
  • Subscribe
  • Newsletters
  • Issue Archive
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Atlanta 500
  • Give Atlanta
  • Georgia Design Awards 2022
  • Atlanta Summer Guide 2022
  • GaBiz Magazine
Sign in
Welcome! Log into your account
Forgot your password? Get help
Create an account
Privacy and Cookies Policy
Create an account
Welcome! Register for an account
A password will be e-mailed to you.
Privacy and Cookies Policy
Password recovery
Recover your password
A password will be e-mailed to you.
Atlanta Magazine Atlanta Magazine
Atlanta Magazine Atlanta Magazine
  • 60th Anniversary
  • News & Culture
    • Arts & Events
    • Great Reads
    • Atlanta After Dark
    • Atlanta 500
    • Groundbreakers
    • Women Making a Mark
  • Food & Drink
    • Restaurant Reviews
    • 50 Best Tacos
    • 123 Things to Eat on Buford Highway
    • 75 Best Restaurants in Atlanta
    • 50 Best Bars
    • Best Barbecue
    • Best Breakfast
  • Home
    • Artists & Galleries
    • Design Advice
    • Design News
    • Gardens
    • Real Estate
    • Neighborhoods
    • Real Estate All-Stars
    • Sponsored: Preferred HOME Partner
  • Life & Style
    • Style
    • School Guide
    • Health & Wellness
    • Top Doctors
    • Top Dentists
    • Sponsored: Physician & Dentist Profiles
    • Buckhead Guidebook
  • Travel
    • Southbound
    • 50 Best Things to Do in Georgia
    • Hidden Georgia
    • North Georgia Mountains
    • Great Georgia Hikes
    • Jekyll Island
    • Georgia Travel Guide
  • Best of ATL
    • Eat
    • Drink
    • See
    • Do
    • Buy
    • Readers’ Choice
  • Magazine
    • Subscription Center
    • Newsletters
    • Digital Editions
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Pitch Us
    • Advertise
    • Custom Media
    • Give Atlanta
    • Events
      • Upcoming Events
      • Past Events
        • 2020 Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Designer Showhouse
        • Atlanta Baby and Beyond
        • Atlanta Magazine Whiskey Festival 2019
        • DINES: A Taste of the City’s Best Restaurants
        • 2019 Modern Style Showhome
        • Best Burger Battle
        • Pinewood Forest Idea Home
        • 2018 Modern Style Showhouses
      • Event Photos
    • Employment
      • Careers
      • Internships
    • Archives
    • Where to Find
Home Women Making A Mark Susan Booth
Custom Publication

Susan Booth

She’s staging thought-provoking theater with heart
By
Beth Castle
-
May 31, 2017
2239

When asked what makes a play successful, Alliance Theater Artistic Director Susan Booth doesn’t start in on box-office sales or positive reviews. Instead, she simply points to her heart, then to her head.

A graduate of Denison and Northwestern universities, Booth began her role at the Alliance in 2001. Since then, the fifty-four-year-old has guided the theater’s programming under one governing principle: Good theater can be anything—a rom-com, a musical, a polemic—so long as the story has enough entry points to engage diverse audiences. “The stuff that I love is the stuff that works on your heart, and it travels north, and without you ever realizing it, something epiphanal happens to you, and you walk out a little different, a little changed,” Booth says.

Her instincts have led to wild success: The Alliance is now the largest producing theater in the Southeast and one of the leaders in developing new American musicals. In 2007, it won the Regional Theatre Tony Award for programming, education, and community engagement. It also reaches more than 50,000 students a year through acting and drama programming.

Booth’s passion for developing new playwrights has likewise bolstered the theater’s renown. One of her signature programs, the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition, has had the foresight to select winners such as Kenneth Lin, now a writer for House of Cards, and Tarell Alvin McCraney, who penned the play that inspired Moonlight, winner of 2017’s Academy Award for Best Picture.

Behind all of this is Booth’s determination to not only amplify unheard voices and viewpoints, but also drive thought-provoking conversation. “I’m very interested in theater’s capacity to shift perspective,” she says. “I think getting people to change their minds and enlarge their hearts is radical, hard, and essential work.”

Advertisement
  • TAGS
  • Women Making a Mark 2017
Beth Castle

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

Custom Publication

Jamie Green-Fergerson

Custom Publication

Kiran Ebrahim

Custom Publication

Barbara Rothbaum

Follow Us

67,614FansLike
126,739FollowersFollow
493,957FollowersFollow
Atlanta Magazine
Since 1961, Atlanta magazine, the city’s premier general interest publication, has served as the authority on Atlanta, providing its readers with a mix of long-form nonfiction, lively lifestyle coverage, in-depth service journalism, and literary essays, columns, and profiles.

Popular posts

30,000-square-foot “eatertainment” venue Your 3rd Spot to open at the Works in June

March 14, 2022
Sponsored

3 Tarot Card Reading Services To Discover Your Destiny & Purpose

August 20, 2021
What to get at Buc-ee's in Georgia

10 Things You Shouldn’t Miss at Buc-ee’s

September 3, 2021

GREAT READS

Unhoused Atlanta

As Atlanta continues to grow, unhoused people are finding a new voice—and new allies

April 12, 2022
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens

The New Mayor: Andre Dickens comes to the job calculating and confident

April 1, 2022
Atlanta Asian Spa Shooting One Year Anniversary

One year later, 7 Asian American community members reflect on the Atlanta spa shootings

March 16, 2022
  • Subscribe
  • Newsletters
  • Issue Archive
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Business Forum
  • Privacy and Cookies Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • General Contest Rules
© 2022. All rights reserved.