Lisa Adler (Co-Artistic/Producing Director) is the co-founder of Horizon Theatre Company. She has produced more than 190 regional and world premieres of contemporary plays and directed more than 35 since she co-founded the theatre in 1983. She also founded the New South Play Festival and has dramaturged and directed dozens of new play workshops. Under her artistic and administrative leadership, Horizon Theatre has become a respected institution in the Atlanta arts community, producing exciting new and recent work and creating innovative community art programs while also remaining fiscally sound. Horizon Theatre was named “Best Theatre Company: Critics Choice” by Creative Loafing, “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 Theatre as a leader among Atlanta’s playmakers, “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 Roe, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Project Dawn, Detroit by Lisa D’Amour, Time Stands Still by Donald Margulies (Suzi Award Best Play 2012), Third by Wendy Wasserstein, In Darfur by Winter Miller, The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl, Nine Parts of Desire by Heather Raffo, The Syringa Tree by Pamela Gien, all directed by Ms. Adler, were voted top productions of their year by local media. She directed and/or dramaturged many of Horizon’s New South Play Festival world premieres, including Third Country and The Perfect Prayer by Suehlya El-Attar, Night Blooms by Margaret Baldwin and The Waffle Palace and Charm School by Larry Larson and Eddie Lee. She is an alumna of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab in NYC and a recipient of the Lexus Leaders in the Arts Award and an Atlanta Arts and Business Council Abby Award for Outstanding Arts Professional. She is a past board member and co-founder of the Atlanta Intown Theatre Partnership and a past board member of the Little Five Points Community Improvement District and founder of the creative place-making program Little Five Arts Alive. She is a past Co-Chair and Vice Chair of the Atlanta Coalition of Theatres. She holds a BFA in Acting from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, where she also returned for post-graduate study in directing.