Tickets: 404-584-7450

Presenting Sponsor

Corporate Sponsor

This year’s line-up includes Ryan Gravel, the man behind the Belt Line, along with Cathy Woolard, former Atlanta City Council president and early advocate for the Belt Line plan; journalist and publisher M. Alexis Scott, a native Atlantan and CEO of Atlanta Daily World, the nation’s oldest black newspaper; and Joe Weber, CEO and Commandant of 1160 WMLB radio station, the “Voice of the Arts” in Atlanta. Ingrid Saunders Jones, Senior Vice President of the Coca-Cola Company, serves as the Honorary Chair for the event.  Metro Atlanta Arts and Culture Coalition President and CEO Bill Nigut returns as the event  emcee and live auctioneer.

The evening begins at 6:30 p.m. with an open bar, silent auction and mingling with the celebrity playwrights.  An elegant seated dinner will be served at 7:30 p.m. and the world premiere of three short plays written by the celebrity playwrights will be presented by a select group of Horizon’s professional actors.  Live auctions will take place during the intermissions. Featured auction items include a six-night African safari on a private game reserve and a 4-bedroom villa with swimming pool in Tuscany.  The silent auction will offer over 100 items, ranging from restaurant and theatre packages to original art and decorative accessories.

Individual tickets are $150 ($75 of which is tax-deductible). 
Tables of 10 are available at $1500.

Join us for cocktails, dinner, silent auction and
the performance of the plays penned by our celebrities!

2006 Celebrities

Ryan Gravel earned a Master of Architecture and Master of City Planning from Georgia Tech in 1999.  His thesis project was the Atlanta Beltline, a 22-mile transit greenway that reuses existing railroads as a wide linear park with streetcars, bicycle and pedestrian paths connecting over 40 diverse neighborhoods.  It organizes adjacent abandoned industrial land for transit-oriented development, expands transit service within the urban core, and connects various parts of an emerging regional trail system. 
Beginning in the summer of 2001, Gravel’s Beltline thesis was ushered to the forefront of transportation projects in the region by Atlanta City Council President Cathy Woolard.  Now the project stands as one of Mayor Franklin’s top priorities and in late 2005 the Atlanta City Council, Atlanta School Board and Fulton County Commission approved a tax allocation district that will generate $1.6 billion over the next 25 years to fund the project.  Gravel has now formed Gravel, Inc. and does contract work for various agencies working on the Atlanta Beltline.

Cathy Woolard is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Georgia and a former National Field Director for the Human Rights Campaign.  She served a stint as general manager of Southern Voice Newspaper and is a former member of the Peace Corps. In 1997, she became the first openly gay elected official in Georgia when she won election to Atlanta’s City Council.  She served as City Council President from 2002 to 2004, during which she has helped guide the council through a session that included a contentious debate over raising the city's water and sewer rates to pay for $3.2 billion in needed repairs.  In 2004, Woolard ran for the Democratic nominee in the 4th District Congressional election.  

        M. Alexis Scott is the publisher of and featured columnist for the Atlanta Daily World, which was the nation's first black-owned daily newspaper.  Her grandfather, W.A. Scott II, founded the paper in 1928.  Ms. Scott attended Barnard College in New York City and Spelman College in Atlanta. She also attended the Columbia University School of Journalism as a summer participant in the 1974 Clark Fellowship Program.  After a twenty-two year career with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Cox Enterprises, Inc, where she worked her way up from reporter to vice president of community affairs at the AJC and then director of diversity at Cox, she joined the family business as publisher. She appears regularly as a panelist on FOX 5’s “The Georgia Gang." 

Joe Weber is the CEO of WMLB (1160AM) the voice of the arts.  Weber grew up in northern New Jersey, attended Middlebury College and Columbia University’s film school.  He has lived in Atlanta for 30 years and was President of Caravan Products Co., a third generation baker supply manufacturing company located in Tucker, GA., before selling the business.  He owned WGKA (1190AM) from 1997 until 2000.  He is the chief benefactor of the new Jewish High School, the Weber School, which is named in honor of his parents.  Weber can be heard on WMLB from 4 to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, on The Long Ride Home.