Atlanta's Alliance Theatre has announced the world premiere of a new stage adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. Adapted by Brendan Pelsue and directed by Leora Morris, the production will run February 21-March 17, 2024, with an official opening set for February 28.

The cast will feature Grant Chapman (King Lear), Tiffany Hobbs (Atlanta), Tess Malis Kincaid (Ozark), Joe Knezevich (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), Louis Reyes McWilliams (The Public's Free Shakespeare in the Park), Lee Osorio (The Temple Bombing), Brad Raymond (A Christmas Carol), and Stephen Ruffin (Snowfall). Together, the eight actors will play over 50 characters. Rounding out the company are understudies Brant Adams, Daniel Annone, Sean Dale, Rebecca Gunn, Danielle Montgomery, and Ryan Siegel.

"What I really admire about this choice [of casting] and the way it works in the adaptation is that it allows us to ask these big questions about fate, social mobility, and the spectrum of wealth to poverty, and the role of the individual in impacting the course of history (and more) without translocating it in time and space,” Morris says in a statement. “It’s not set in contemporary Atlanta, but it feels to me like it has the potential to speak directly to Atlantans about the experience of being born, growing up, or living here in our current time."  

A Tale of Two Cities is set in London and Paris in 1787, and examines the ideals, motivations, and character of the rich and the poor. 

The creative team includes costume designer Fabian Fidel Aguilar, set and lighting designer Jiyoun Chang, composer Chris Ross-Ewart, fight choreographer Jake Guinn, stage manager Liz Campbell, assistant stage manager Barbara Gantt O’Haley, stage management production assistant LaMarr White, Jr., line producers Christopher Moses and Jody Feldman, associate set designer Joo Kim, associate lighting designer David Reingold, and production management lead Lawrence Bennett.

Visit AllianceTheatre.org.