Your 2025 Atlanta fall arts calendar

Visual Arts

The Art of Minnie Evans
In 1975, folk artist Minnie Evans became one of the first Black artists to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. After her death in 1987, Evans’s artistic nova faded into semiobscurity and she hasn’t been the subject of a major exhibition since the 1990s. Through the years, the High Museum of Art began to collect the work of the North Carolina–born Evans and will showcase more than 100 of her pieces for the exhibit The Lost World: The Art of Minnie Evans that opens November 14 and runs through April 12, 2026. The nationally touring exhibit will return Evans to the Whitney in the summer of 2026.

Atlanta Art Fair
With the success of its inaugural season last year, the Atlanta Art Fair returns September 25–28 at Pullman Yards. The fair received national coverage last year, with Forbes saying, “Long lagging as a destination for visual arts, the Atlanta Art Fair proves the city’s arts community is no longer emerging, it has arrived.” The event featured works from more than 60 art galleries across the country but showcased Atlanta institutions. The opening day alone had 3,500 visitors. This year’s version includes artist talks, performances and installations that will spotlight the diversity of Atlanta’s visual arts community.

SCAD AnimationFest 2025
The popular festival focuses on all things pertaining to digital media, featuring panels and screenings to showcase new animation content. SCAD AnimationFest 2025 features films and television shows from such major networks as CBS, FX, Fox, and Hulu, in addition to work by SCAD student animators. It runs September 25–27 at SCADshow on Spring Street.

Courtesy of Cincinnati Ballet

Dance

Salute to Balanchine
The cofounder of New York City Ballet, George Balanchine was one of the most influential choreographers of the 20th-century and for many set the tone of modern ballet in America. The Atlanta Ballet opens its season September 12–14 at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre with two works by the legendary choreographer—Emeralds and Prodigal Son—and a third piece by Tony Award–winning Justin Peck that was inspired by Balanchine. Emeralds is said to reflect the essence of Balanchine’s style, while Prodigal Son is a story of sin and redemption that was first performed in 1929.

The Debut of Wabi Sabi Terminus
In the summer of 2011, dancers from the Atlanta Ballet took over the lawn at the Atlanta Botanical Garden in the debut of the company’s Wabi Sabi outdoor dance troupe. Led by John Welker, then one of Atlanta Ballet’s principal dancers, Wabi Sabi’s programs were consistently enchanting. Instead of being confined to faraway seats, the audience was within steps of the dancers in the scenic outdoor vistas of the Botanical Garden and Serenbe. The troupe was shut down after Welker left Atlanta Ballet in 2016 and helped form Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre. Welker has reformed the troupe as Wabi Sabi Terminus and it debuts this fall with the same aesthetic as the original: outdoor performances with fresh choreographic voices. There are performances at the Atlanta Botanical Garden October 30 and November 1–2.

Return of the Count
Walk into the ancient library at Ireland’s Trinity College Dublin, and you may initially be puzzled by displays devoted to noted Irish author Abraham Stoker. Who? Then you get it: Ah, Bram Stoker, right. His classic work, Dracula, set the standard for Gothic horror fiction when it was published in 1897, and it has inspired countless stage, screen, opera, and dance versions. The Guinness Book of World Records even named Count Dracula as the most portrayed fictional character in history. Just in time for Halloween, the Georgia Ballet will perform a new version of Dracula October 23–26 at the Jennie T. Anderson Theatre in Marietta. The production, choreographed by Kentucky Ballet Theatre artistic director Norbe Risco, is tailored for an adult audience.

Theater

The Alliance Explores a Blues Legend
The legend of Robert Johnson going to a crossroads in the dark of a Mississippi night to sell his soul with the devil for the ability to play the guitar is a keystone of blues and rock ‘n’ roll mythology. One of his signature songs, “Me and the Devil Blues,” is often interpreted as a reference to that fateful night and Johnson’s impact has continued long past his brief life. His songs were discovered and recorded by such rock legends as the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Eric Clapton. Covenant, coming to the Alliance Theatre’s Hertz Stage October 8 through November 9, revolves around a blues musician who is based on Johnson. The New York Times described the play as a “striking Southern gothic” full of terror and supernatural suggestions.

The Producers
Before his comedy film classics Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks received an Oscar for The Producers, one of the strangest (and funniest) dark comedies ever produced. In the film, a down-on-his-luck theater producer and his accountant come up with a scheme to deliberately produce a Broadway flop and bilk investors . . . except, much to their chagrin, the play is a hit. Brooks (with cowriter Thomas Meehan) later turned the movie into a Broadway musical that received a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards and has been a popular regional theater production ever since. The City Springs Theatre Company opens its 2025–26 season with The Producers, running September 5–21.

The Return of Tennessee Williams
The Glass Menagerie debuted in 1944 and catapulted a young playwright named Tennessee Williams to fame. When it reached Broadway the next year, the production received the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play. Williams’s plays were steeped in the wet heat of the South, and The Glass Menagerie is no exception. Directed by Artistic Director Matt Tourney with dramaturgy by Associate Artistic Director Addae Moon, Theatrical Outfit promises a “bold new vision” of the venerable play. The production runs October 29 through November 23.

Photograph by Scott Suchman

Music

Fanfare for the Common Man
Music director and rising classical music star Nathalie Stutzmann has brought a certain je ne sais quoi to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, garnering international press in the process. Watching Stutzmann conduct the orchestra is half the fun of attending a performance; she sometimes seems to cajole the musical notes out of the orchestra with her swaying body movements. The ASO opens the 2025–26 season October 3–5 with Aaron Copeland’s master work “Fanfare for the Common Man,” written as the United States entered World War II. The guest soloist, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, performs Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, and the evening will conclude with Richard Strauss’s tone poem Ein Heldenleben.

La traviata
When audiences jeered at the premiere performance of La traviata (“The Fallen Woman”) in 1853 composer Giuseppe Verdi famously wrote to a friend, “La traviata last night a failure. Was the fault mine or the singers’? Time will tell.” Time has told (it was indeed the original casting) and La traviata overcame that shaky start to become one of opera’s most enduring and iconic works. The Atlanta Opera opens its new season with La traviata, the tragic story of passion and true love. Armenian soprano Mané Galoyan makes her Atlanta debut in the lead role of Violetta. The show runs November 8–16.

Jazz at All Saints
After a successful debut season, the Jazz at All Saints series returns this fall. Set in the sanctuary of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Midtown, the series has been a welcome addition to the city’s jazz scene. Curated by artistic director Virginia Schenck (who hosts artist talks after each performance), the second season begins September 12 with the quartet led by drummer (and Georgia State University professor) Robert Boone Jr. The concert will celebrate the 100th birthday of legendary drummer Max Roach, one of the pioneers of bebop. Along with his teaching duties and his band, Boone holds the drummer chair in the current version of the Count Basie Orchestra.

This article appears in our September 2025 issue.

Advertisement