Susan V. Booth and Pearl Cleage featured in Atlanta Magazine: Atlanta's 500 Most Powerful Leaders in 2021

Atlanta Magazine News

Atlanta's 500 Most Powerful Leaders in 2021: Arts, Sports, & Entertainment

Among Kenny Blank, Donald Glover, Tyler Perry, and Usher, are two of our Alliance jewels and artistic leaders: Jennings Hertz Artistic Director, Susan V. Booth and Distinguished Artist in Residence, Pearl Cleage. In case you needed some refreshing, read about the cultural accomplishments and contributions they've made towards bettering our city and world.

Susan V. Booth

Since 2001, Susan Booth has brought national attention to Atlanta’s theater scene as artistic director of the Alliance Theatre, where she’s launched six productions to Broadway, won a Regional Theatre Tony Award, and directed world premieres by Pearl Cleage, Natasha Trethewey, John Mellencamp, and Stephen King. She has also initiated the Palefsky Collision Project for teens, the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition, the Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab, and local producing partnerships and regional collaborative productions. Booth has directed productions at theaters including the Goodman, the La Jolla Playhouse, and the Actors Theatre of Louisville, and has taught at Northwestern, DePaul, and Emory.

Education: Denison University, Northwestern University (MA)
Notable achievement: Led the Alliance through an off-campus season that produced plays in 13 locations across the city, while building a new theater to return to in our 50th year
Best advice received: Johnnetta Cole told me to stop worrying about filling someone else’s shoes. “Get your own shoes,” she said.

Pearl Cleage

Pearl Cleage is the author of 15 plays, eight novels, two books of poetry, two books of essays, a book of short stories, and a memoir. She worked in politics as speechwriter/press secretary to Mayor Maynard Jackson and as a consultant in many local political races. She has worked with the Palefsky Collision Project at the Alliance for 10 years as a playwright and mentor, and recently completed her first animated feature for young audiences with Sit-In, a story of movements, past and present. She is the wife of author Zaron W. Burnett Jr., with whom she recently collaborated on In My Granny’s Garden, a book for the Mayor’s Summer Reading Club, with illustrations by Radcliffe Bailey. She is the mother of one daughter and the grandmother of five.

Education: Spelman College
Notable achievements: New York Times bestselling author, nationally produced playwright
Best advice received: From John Lewis: “Make good trouble.”
Bucket list: Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon

Check out the full list here.