Atlanta City Guide - Culture

In the days of its antebellum greatness, Atlanta was a cultural centre with big aspirations. The major cultural venue is the Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree Street (tel: (404) 733 4200; website: www.woodruff-arts.org). This glass and stone modern architectural showpiece was erected by the then head of Coca-Cola, Donald Woodruff, as a non-profit-making service to the community. It commemorates a 1962 plane crash at Orly, Paris, which killed 106 Atlanta citizens and one of the buildings is still known as the Memorial Arts Building. The centre, now spread around a campus, hosts a continuing series of cultural events and is home to the High Museum of Art (see Key Attractions). It also contains three theatres, exhibition galleries and is home to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Alliance Theatre Company, the 14th Street Playhouse, as well as children's and Afro-American groups. The Center For Puppetry Arts (see Key Attractions) is only a few blocks away.

Access Atlanta (website: www.accessatlanta.com) lists the latest events information online, while Ticketmaster (tel: (404) 249 6400; website: www.ticketmaster.com) is the agency for all cultural bookings. AtlanTIX (tel: (404) 588 9890; website: www.atlantaperforms.com) sells same day/half-price tickets for various shows. The ticket booth is located at Visitors Center at Underground Atlanta, 65 Upper Alabama.

Music: The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (website: www.atlantasymphony.com) was founded in the 1940s but only became full time in 1968. Fame struck when they played at President Carter's inaugural concert; they have toured Europe and the Americas extensively. Programmes often feature classical-pop, with at least one distinctly non-classical concert each month. The orchestra performs either at the Atlanta Symphony Hall (tel: (404) 733 4900) in the Woodruff Arts Center or at the Chastain Park Ampitheatre, 135 West Wieuca Road (tel: (404) 733 4955).

Theatre: The Art Deco Islamic extravaganza Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree Street (tel: (404) 881 2100; website: www.foxtheatre.org), known as the 'fabulous fox', is a National Historic Landmark and an attraction in its own right, with a star-studded foyer, fantastic balconies and exotic gilding. The Atlanta Opera (tel: (404) 881 8801; website: www.atlantaopera.org) is at the Atlanta Civic Center at 728 West Peachtree Northwest. It stages four operas each year. The Alliance Theater Company (tel: (404) 733 5000; website: www.alliancetheatre.org) is based at the Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree Street Northeast (website: http://woodruffcenter.org), and performs modern American drama with an occasional European piece. The 14th Street Playhouse, also part of the Woodruff Arts Center but based at 173 14th Street (tel: (404) 733 4738 (box office) or 733 4750 (recorded information); website: www.woodruffcenter.org/14thstplayhouse), is an umbrella space that showcases the work of many small theatre companies.

The New American Shakespeare Tavern, 499 Peachtree Street Northeast (tel: (404) 874 5299; website: www.shakespearetavern.com), pays homage to the Bard with a Globe-like theatre experience. Lastly, the Theatre in the Square, 11 Whitlock Avenue, in Marietta (tel: (770) 422 8369; website: www.theatreinthesquare.com), is housed in an old cotton warehouse and produces plays that reflect local history and feature local writers. It is only 20 minutes' drive from Atlanta and worth a visit.

Dance: The oldest continually operating company in the US, the Atlanta Ballet, 1400 West Peachtree Street Northwest (tel: (404) 873 5811; website: www.atlantaballet.com), is over 75 years old and performs during autumn, winter and spring. Presentations are held at the Fox Theatre (see Theatre above). The Robert Ferst Center for the Arts at the Georgia Institute of Technology, 349 Ferst Drive Northwest (tel: (404) 894 9600; website: www.ferstcenter.gatech.edu) features jazz, dance, theatre and classical music.

Film: Multi-screen movie houses screen Hollywood releases and the international distributors' list. The 1920s Fox Theatre hosts the Coca-Cola Summer Film Festival with both classic and contemporary hits on the biggest screen in town. The film programme offered by the Woodruff Arts Center includes a remarkable range of foreign films, while the Goethe-Institute, Colony Square (tel: (404) 892 2388; website: www.goethe.de/uk/atl/enindex.htm), shows German films every Wednesday evening in their auditorium.

Movies shot on location in Atlanta include Sharky's Machine (1981), Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and Sweet Home Alabama (2002). Parts of Apollo 13 (1995) were filmed on top of Stone Mountain. Recent films that used Atlanta as its setting include Mad Black Woman (2004), Madea's Family Reunion (2005) and We Are Marshall (2006).

Literary Notes: Margaret Mitchell, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece about the antebellum and post-Civil War South, Gone with the Wind (1936), is the city's favourite literary child. The book has sold more hardcover copies in the USA than any book other than the Bible. After 70 years, it still sells over 250,000 copies per year.

Tom Wolfe recently moved decidedly upmarket and set A Man in Full (1998) among the rich and powerful bankers and real-estate magnates of the suburb of Buckhead in Atlanta. It reveals a seamy underside to their upper-crust lives and the city very nearly banned the author from ever setting foot in Atlanta again. More light-heartedly, The Cat Who Robbed A Bank (2000), a mystery by Lillian Jackson Braun, stars a wealthy Atlanta auction buyer.

In the non-fiction arena, the Southern Architecture Foundation has published the Architecture of James Means (2001), a designer of some of the local stately homes.