Lisa Adler

Lisa Adler(Co-Artistic/Producing Director & Artistic Director of the New South Festival)is the co-founder of Horizon Theatre Company, now in its 26^th season of producing Atlanta, Southeastern and world premieres of contemporary plays.  She has produced over 120 Horizon plays and directed more than 30.  She also founded the New South Play Festival of plays from, for and about the contemporary South and has dramaturged or directed dozens of new play workshops.  Under her artistic and managerial leadership, Horizon has become a respected institution in the Atlanta arts community, producing exciting new and recent work while also remaining fiscally responsible.  Horizon was named “Best Theatre Company: Critics Choice” by Creative Loafing and “Best Theatre Company” by Atlanta Magazine and has received numerous awards from local media for Best Production, Best Actor and Best Director.  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has described Horizon as a leader among Atlanta’s play-makers “attempting to transform Atlanta's theatre scene into a reflection of Atlanta's unique spirit not just an echo of New York...Horizon commands respect...standing tall in the city's imaginative life.” 

Critically-acclaimed productions of The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl, In Darfur by Winter Miller, 9 Parts of Desire by Heather Raffo, The Syringa Tree by Pamela Gien, Boy Gets Girl by Rebecca Gilman, Quills by Doug Wright, Skylight by David Hare, Escape from Happiness by George F. Walker and The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein, all directed by Ms. Adler, were voted top productions of their year by local media.  She served as dramaturg for Her Little House (world premiere 2004) and dramaturg/director for The Perfect Prayer (world premiere 2006) and CharmSchool (world premiere in 2007).  In 2000, she was selected to participate in the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab in New York.  She was a recipient of a Theatre Communications Group observership to study new play development programs, a 1999 Lexus Leaders in the Arts Award, and a 2000 Atlanta Arts and Business Council Abby Award for Outstanding Arts Professional.  She is a past Co-Chair and Vice Chair of the Atlanta Coalition of Theatres and a past President of the Southeast Playwrights Project.  She holds a BFA in Acting from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, where she also returned for post-graduate study in directing.