Marie Cisco talks new role at Alliance Theatre

Marie Cisco is ready to discover what Atlanta artists are hungry for. 

As the new BOLD Associate Artistic Director for the Alliance Theatre, the film and theater producer will work alongside the theater’s artistic directors, and manage Alliance programs such as the Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab. She will also help oversee the development of local talent through the Alliance’s Spelman Leadership Fellowship and the Kenny Leon Associate Director programs. 

Cisco is an Atlanta native and has worked in numerous spaces in both film, television and theater. Her past experience includes The National Black Theatre, The Public Theater, Lee Daniels Entertainment, and Stardust Films by Common. 

According to a press release, Cisco’s new position is supported by the BOLD Theater Women’s Leadership Circle, which aims to create a network of women artistic directors in professional theaters across the country. The previous BOLD Associate Artistic Director was Tinashe Kajese-Bolden, who is now the theater’s Jennings Hertz Artistic Director, along with Christopher Moses. 

Rough Draft recently spoke with Cisco about her career and the Alliance. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

I’ve read a little bit about what sort of draws you to different projects, but I would love to hear you talk about what makes you want to be involved in a project as a producer. 

Marie Cisco: As I sort of honed in on the types of projects and stories I was attracted to – which I think happened a few years out of college, once I was working professionally – I quickly learned that I really love new work. So, stories that were fresh, that were new. Writers who were thinking about different ways, innovative ways to tell their stories or to share their experiences, and to talk about the things that were exciting to them. That became the space where I worked, primarily; developing new work with writers, helping them figure out the best tools that they needed to tell their stories, helping them find their creative teams. Doing notes, workshops, and development to help them build whatever it was that was stuck in their head. 

With that, though, I also learned that I really liked the classics. I love a good “A Raisin in the Sun,” I love a good August Wilson [play]. If it’s done well, I’ll enjoy Shakespeare. I love Sam Shepard. So I really love the classics, whether it’s a new take on it or the way it was intended for the time, or new work. Those are two of the spaces where I live.

When I transitioned from theater – I took a break from theater right before the pandemic and went out to L.A. to learn TV and film. I was always interested in it, but didn’t really know how or when I would make the leap. I got an opportunity to go out to L.A. and work with Lee Daniels, and got to work on “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” which is a period piece. I really enjoyed that and really got excited in terms of the film medium about telling true stories – stories about real people, whether it’s a biopic or documentary. In that medium, those are stories that I’m really excited about. If there’s a really interesting news story or something that I read, I might think about, what would it look like to turn this into a series or film? Kind of what Netflix has been doing a lot, but just not with the murders and the serial killers [laughs]. 

When you went out to L.A., what was the biggest difference in your role, transitioning from theater to TV and film?  What was the biggest challenge?

Cisco: Their hours are different. Film, it’s a very dense timeline. So you might shoot an entire movie in five days, or like with “Billie,” I think we were out there for like five weeks, and it’s 12-hour days. It was just a new muscle, a different way of working. There wasn’t as long of a runway for development and script revisions as there is in theater. Like in theater, we’ll develop something for three, four, five years, you know, until it’s ready. But in film, you have locations set, you have funding in, you have actors’ schedules that are all over the place. When you say you’re shooting, you have to sort of stick with that. So everybody has to get ready versus the art driving it. In theater, I feel like the art drives it – when the art is ready, we’ll do it. Whereas in film, if we have the financing, if the money is there and we have the team together, we’ll do it. So the art sort of takes a back seat sometimes. I think that was the biggest difference.

People work differently, the personalities are a bit different, because it’s just two different mediums of making [something]. TV/film is sort of the corporate, commercial version of the art, whereas theater is like the nonprofit – we’re doing it for the art! Not to say in film and TV that isn’t the case. A lot of folks do do it for the art … I missed theater – clearly, I’m back – but also still have a hand in that world, in TV and film. 

Speaking of coming back, what was your relationship to the Alliance before taking on this new role? What was the process of you stepping into this new position? 

Cisco: I hadn’t had much of a relationship, but to back up, I grew up in Atlanta. I’m from here originally, and when we were in high school, my junior year – I had already been doing theater, but wasn’t really convinced that I was going to pursue it – but we came my junior year and we saw “The Color Purple.” This was before it hit Broadway … so this was the original cast. It was the opening number, and the cast was coming down the aisles, and I was just blown away. Like, blown, blown away. I was like, I don’t know how I’m gonna do this, I don’t know how I’m gonna figure it out. But I’m going to make a career in theater – make a career making art and making people feel the way I felt sitting in the theater at the Alliance. 

I left after high school, and I went to school in Chicago. I was in Chicago for a total of eight years, and then I went to New York. Second week into the pandemic, I came home to Atlanta and stayed with my mom, just sort of “waiting out,” right – in quotes – the pandemic. I met my husband, started pandemic dating. We got married, bought a house here, and I’ve been in Atlanta since 2020. That’s what brought me back. 

But I was still freelancing. I was working in L.A., I was working on film projects. I was running Common’s TV and film company, Stardust Films. I was working out of L.A. a lot, and then working out of New York as well. So I wasn’t working in Atlanta, I just lived here. I sort of got to a place where I was like, I want to be more local. I always said that if I’m back back in Atlanta, working in Atlanta, it has to be at the Alliance. Since I’ve been back over the years, I constantly check and just see what jobs are there. The thing about the Alliance is that people stay. Folks have been here for years, and so there aren’t many positions open. 

There was the posting for this job, or another job, which led me to meet and have a conversation with [Director of New Work] Amanda Watkins, which led to a coffee date – I think we met when I was in New York, and then I came back and we had a really great coffee date, and just sort of talked about what was happening at the Alliance and things that might be opening up. She was saying the Goizueta Stage for Youth and Families was going to be opening up, so there may be producing opportunities. A few weeks later, she reached out to me about this position, and was like, can we talk about it? We did, and it ended up working out. 

Stepping into this role, what is your vision for the Alliance as associate artistic director? 

Cisco: Part of what I’ll be doing is managing one of the programs here called the Reiser [Atlanta] Artists Lab, which takes in three cohorts a year – three teams who have a project in early stages of development, and they receive $10,000 towards developing that project. Then, at the end of the cohort session in the spring, they do a presentation of what they’ve done. 

I’m really excited about digging into the Atlanta artist scene and figuring out what folks are doing, what Atlanta artists feel like they need, what type of support they need, or what type of work Atlanta artists are really excited about. It’s a really interesting time in Atlanta, because you have folks that were born here and raised here, but then you also have a lot of transplants from L.A., New York and other spaces. So the culture, and art culture, is shifting and growing. Film and TV is moving here. A lot of the agencies – UTA, CAA, 3 Arts [Entertainment] – have opened offices here, which is a very big deal for the Atlanta arts scene. So I’m really excited about learning about Atlanta artists and growing that program. 

I’m also excited about assisting [with] and thinking about season planning, and working with [Artistic Director] Tinashe [Kajese-Bolden] and [Artistic Director] Chris [Moses] and Amanda [Watkins] to find plays that are going on around the country, to find writers who are really finding interesting, innovative ways to write and things to write about … Also thinking about programming and things that are exciting for the Goizueta Stage for Youth and Families. It’s supporting Chris and Tinashe’s vision overall, but then it’s working in my varied skill sets in film and TV, working in the New York market and the L.A. market, and bringing all those experiences to Atlanta, while also building off of what the art scene here feels like it needs and wants. It’s several different prongs. 

I had also recently, before I got here, started co-producing on Broadway. I did “The Wiz,” which closed last year. So I am also now interested in commercial theater and big musicals, and things that have commercial appeal as well. So that’s something I’m also thinking about.

In talking about what you feel the Atlanta theater scene needs and wants, do you have any ideas about that? About what artists here are hungry for, or what the Atlanta theater scene needs to thrive? 

Cisco: I think the big thing is opportunities to develop and showcase their work. To be seen. I think that that is very true with Reiser and the opportunity it allows artists to develop their work and have a safe space to think and to take risks and to ask questions and to be mentored. I think financing is a big thing. I have a lot of colleagues here who are constantly making short films, and one thing is finding investors and financiers and people to just back their films so they’re able to make work. Because that is usually what people show to get larger jobs. You need a proof of concept. People need to know that you know how to make something. But in order to make something, you need support and resources and a producer, and all of these things. It also helps folks leverage themselves to get out to the festival circuit, because that is also where a lot of artists are seen. I know there’s the Atlanta Film Festival, but I’m also wondering if there are other opportunities throughout the year for folks to show their work to agents, to managers, to investors, to producers, to other writers.