He’s penned hit songs for The Dixie Chicks, Sarah Evans and Rascal Flatts, to name a few. But last fall, Marcus Hummon, one of country music’s premiere and most awarded songwriters, sat down to use his talent in another way. When Hummon isn’t writing No. 1 songs for today’s top musicians, he enjoys penning pieces for musical theater.Last fall, Hummon began work on his fourth theatrical piece, “Atlanta.” Six months later the musical is set to premier in the Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s Johnson Theater. The Actor’s Bridge Ensemble, a professional theater company based in Nashville, will bring Hummon’s words to life today through Feb. 3.”Ultimately the play is really about poetry and what it means as human expression,” explains Hummon from his cell phone during a recent interview with The Daily News Journal. Hummon is on his way home from a writing appointment in Nashville and is anxious to talk about his latest creation. “I wrote this play as the ultimate attempt of human expression. When all else is gone, poetry remains.”He’s not saying the play is all poetry and large words. In fact, the plot centers on a mythical regiment in the Civil War and how Col. Medraut, the soldiers’ commanding officer, orders his slaves to perform Shakespeare to lighten moods on the battlefield.”The story is told by a Yankee impostor,” explains Hummon. “He kills a Confederate soldier to keep from being killed himself. Then he puts on the dead man’s uniform and gets captured by the Confederate army for desertion. He’s then saved by one of Medraut’s slaves, and the story goes from there. He gets sucked into the environment and it’s very entertaining.”However, the writer says he can’t take all the credit for “Atlanta’s” unpredictable story line. A portion of the plot line came from ADRIAN PASDAR, husband of Natalie Maines, lead singer of the country trio The Dixie Chicks.”I had wanted to do something in period and was very interested in the Civil War,” says Hummon. “I was in Austin (Texas) writing with the Dixie Chicks, and one night ADRIAN and I were doing dishes. He had an idea about a soldier who kills his counterpart and puts on the soldier’s uniform to stay alive. Then he finds a parcel of the soldier’s letters and that became a subplot. I thought the two (ideas) lived together as one story.”Not wanting to take PASDAR’S plot without permission, Hummon wrote PASDAR, asking his permission to use his idea. Permission was immediately granted.”So I guess ADRIAN is a co-writer, of sorts,” says Hummon.