Behind the Musical: Trading Places

Thursday, May 5, 7:00 – 8:00pm

Rich Theatre // Woodruff Arts Center

Join us for a fun, exclusive preview event with the creative team of TRADING PLACES — a hilarious world-premiere musical pitting nature against nurture in a modern-day prince and the pauper story, inspired by the beloved film. Featuring Kenny Leon (Tony Award-Winning Director), Thomas Lennon (Book Writer), and Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner (Composer & Lyricist).  This conversation will be moderated by Susan V. Booth, Alliance's Jennings Hertz Artistic Director. Plus, a sneak peek performance from the talented cast, exclusive discounts, and much more!

This event is free and open to the public. Tickets must be reserved in advance.

TUNE-IN ALERT: If you're unable to join us in person for tonight's event, you can watch the event live on our YouTube channel.  Click here.  

Kenny Leon is a Tony and Obie Award-winning; Emmy-nominated; Broadway and Television director. Most recently, he directed Lifetime’s Emmy-nominated Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia. Currently on Netflix, Kenny directed Amend: The Fight for America, a six-part docuseries hosted by Will Smith. Last year, he directed the Tony Award--winning Broadway premiere of Charles Fuller's Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece, A Soldier's Play starring Blair Underwood and David Alan Grier at Roundabout Theatre Company for which he also received a nomination for Best Director. He also directed the acclaimed production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Delacorte/Shakespeare in the Park. His Broadway credits include the recent production of A Soldier's Play, American Son starring Kerry Washington and Steven Pasquale which was also adapted for Netflix, the revival of Children of a Lesser God, the Tupac musical Holler If Ya Hear Me, A Raisin in the Sun starring Denzel Washington (Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play and Best Revival of a Play), The Mountaintop starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett, Stick Fly produced by Alicia Keys, August Wilson’s Fences (which garnered ten Tony nominations and won three Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Play), Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf, as well as A Raisin in the Sun starring Sean “Diddy” Combs, Phylicia Rashad, and Audra McDonald. He also directed Smart People and The Underlying Chris for Second Stage.  Leon’s television work includes “Hairspray Live!”, and “The Wiz Live!” on NBC. He recently released his memoir Take You Wherever You Go. He is the recipient of the 2016 Mr. Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing and the 2010 Award for Excellence in Directing from the Drama League. Mr. Leon serves on the board of New York's Public Theater and is Artistic Director Emeritus of Atlanta's Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company. He is currently serving as Senior Resident Director at Roundabout Theatre Company.

Prior to co-founding True Colors Theatre Company, he served 11 years as Artistic Director of the Alliance Theatre, where he produced the premieres of Disney's Elaborate Lives: The Legend of Aida, Pearl Cleage's Blues for an Alabama Sky and Alfred Uhry's The Last Night of Ballyhoo. Other directorial credits include Alicia Keys World Tour, Toni Morrison's opera Margaret Garner, the world premiere of Flashdance The Musical, and the complete August Wilson Century Cycle at the Kennedy Center. Leon is a sought-after motivational speaker that has done acting and theatre workshops at universities and corporate offices around the country, South Africa and Ireland. He has directed in the UK, and extensively throughout the US, including Chicago's Goodman Theatre, Boston's Huntington Theatre, Baltimore's Center Stage, Los Angeles' Center Theatre Group and New York's Public Theatre. Leon is a graduate of Clark Atlanta and is an honorary Ph.D. recipient of Clark Atlanta and Roosevelt Universities and has served as the Denzel Washington Chair at Fordham University.

Susan V. Booth (Jennings Hertz Artistic Director) joined the Alliance Theatre in 2001 and has initiated the Palefsky Collision Project for teens, the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition, the Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab, local producing partnerships and regional collaborative productions, as well as commercial partnerships on projects such as The Prom; Tuck Everlasting; Ghost Brothers of Darkland County; The Color Purple; Bring It On: The Musical; Twyla Tharp’s Come Fly Away; Sister Act: The Musical; Bring in ’da Noise, Bring in ’da Funk;and Jesus Christ Superstar GOSPEL, and has directed world premieres by writers including Pearl Cleage, Janece Shaffer, National Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, Stephen King, John Mellencamp, and Kristian Bush. As a director, she has worked at such theatres as the Goodman, La Jolla Playhouse, New York Stage and Film, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Northlight Theatre, Victory Gardens, Court Theatre and many others. She holds degrees from Denison and Northwestern universities and was a fellow of the National Critics Institute and the Kemper Foundation. She has held teaching positions at Northwestern, DePaul, and Emory universities. She is a past president of the board of directors for the Theatre Communications Group, the national service organization for the field, is a trustee of Denison University, and a member of the Carter Center’s Board of Councilors. Susan’s leadership is underwritten by the BOLD Theater Women’s Leadership Circle, an initiative to support and promote women’s theater leadership funded by The Helen Gurley Brown Foundation. Susan is married to Max Leventhal and is the proud mother of Moira Rose Leventhal.

Thomas Lennon is an actor, producer and New York Times Best Selling author from Oak Park, Illinois. He attended the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where he was a member of the influential sketch comedy group The State. The State’s hit television series ran on MTV for three seasons and received an Ace Award nomination for Best Comedy Series.

After his work on The State, he and his writing partner, Robert Ben Garant, created two more popular series: Viva Variety, which ran for three seasons and was also an Ace nominee for Best Comedy Series, and Reno 911!, on which he also played Lieutenant Jim Dangle. Reno 911! aired for six seasons on Comedy Central before being revived for a seventh season and nominated for an Emmy Award in 2020. Season 8 of Reno 911! is currently in post-production.

Lennon and Garant have also written numerous feature films together, including Night at the Museum, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, Reno 911!: Miami, The Pacifier, Balls of Fury and Hell Baby. In addition to writing films, Lennon and Garant co-authored, Writing Movies for Fun and Profit, a book about the studio system that Anna Kendrick called, “The Best Book about Hollywood… Hilarious and insanely accurate,” in The New York Times.

In 2019, Lennon debuted on The New York’s Bestseller List with his children’s book Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles. The narrative follows fourteen-year old Ronan Boyle, the youngest and lowliest recruit to the secret Garda – an Irish police force that handles the misdeeds of numerous magical creatures.

Ronan sets on a mission to prove his parents innocence as he is convinced they were framed by the wee people. In March of 2020, Lennon released the sequel with Ronan Boyle and the Swamp of Certain Death. The third installment of the series Ronan Boyle: Into the Strangeplace is on sale this year. A DreamWorks Animation feature film of the Ronan Boyle series is currently in development, with Fergal Reilly (Angry Birds) directing. 

As an actor, Lennon has appeared in the films Transformers: Age of Extinction, The Dark Knight Rises, Le Divorce, Heights, Conversations with Other Women, Memento, 17 Again, I Love You, Man, Cedar Rapids, Knight of Cups, Bad Teacher, Harold and Kumar 3D and What to Expect When You’re Expecting.

His other credits include Netflix’s A Futile and Stupid Gesture, Half Magic opposite Heather Graham and Clint Eastwood’s The 15:57 to Paris. He can be seen in the Russo Brother’s upcoming film CHERRY, with Tom Holland. 

On television he has been seen in How I Met Your Mother, Sean Saves the World, The Odd Couple, Drunk History, The Santa Clarita Diet, Supergirl, Lethal Weapon, and The Twilight Zone.

Lennon lives in Los Angeles and Wisconsin with his wife, the actress Jenny Robertson, and their son, Oliver.

Alan Zachary & Michael Weiner wrote the score for the Broadway musical comedy FIRST DATE, which premiered at the Longacre Theatre starring Zachary Levi and has subsequently had over two hundred productions around the world. Their stage musical adaptation of Paramount’s TRADING PLACES will have its world premiere at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre in Spring 2022, directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon (book: Thomas Lennon & Robert Ben Garant).

Zachary and Weiner are currently writing the screenplay and songs for an original live-action movie musical for TriStar Pictures (Jason Reed Productions). Additionally, they’re writing a movie musical for Disney+, produced by Suzanne Todd.

The duo contributed the first original song for HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL: THE MUSICAL: THE SERIES (Disney+) and penned all the songs for the critically acclaimed musical episode of ABC’s ONCE UPON A TIME. They’ve also developed pilots, movies and songs for ABC, CW, FOX, Disney Channel, VH1, Nickelodeon and Amazon Studios.

Upcoming stage musicals: 17 AGAIN (dir: Adam Shankman) and 13 GOING ON 30 (dir: Andy Fickman). The team also wrote music and lyrics for a stage musical adaptation of the cult family film SECONDHAND LIONS (book: Rupert Holmes / prod: Warner Brothers Theatre Ventures) which debuted at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre (world premiere recording on Broadway Records).

Zachary & Weiner are recipients of the ASCAP Foundation Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award, presented by Broadway legend Stephen Schwartz.