Essential Theatre Playwriting Competition

Click here for news about previous ET winners

We're now accepting play script submissions for the 2011 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award competition. Unproduced plays by Georgia playwrights are eligible; there are no restrictions as to style, subject matter or length (though preference is given to plays with a running time of at least an hour). The winning playwright will receive a cash prize of $600, and the play will be given a full production as part of the 2011 Essential Theatre Play Festival. The script submission deadline is April 23, 2010.

Submissions for the 2011 festival can be e-mailed to Peter Hardy in pdf or MSWord format or sent by regular mail to the address below. Please read the Authors Agreement. If your play is selected, you will be asked to sign and submit a copy of this agreement.

Essential Theatre
1414 Foxhall Lane #10
Atlanta, GA 30316

Please make sure that your contact information is on the front page of the script.

Previous Playwriting Competition Winners

Fix Me So I Can Stand
This powerful drama by Jean Sterrett is based on the true story of an African-American man falsely convicted of a double homicide in 1970's Georgia. Other plays by Ms. Sterrett have won the Los Angeles National Repertory Theater Foundation's National Play Award, the Harold C. Crain National Award and the Onassis Foundation's International Playwriting Competition. Jean Sterrett, winner of our 2007 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award competition, was recently named "Best Local Playwright" by Creative Loafing.

Charm School
In 2006 we had two prize-winners, and one of them -- Larry Larson and Eddie Levi Lee's CHARM SCHOOL, went on to a highly-acclaimed, sold-out second production at Atlanta's Horizon Theatre. And just last month, CHARM SCHOOL was named winner of the Gene-Gabriel Moore Playwriting Award, part of the city-wide Suzi Bass Awards for professional theatre. The Essential Theatre's contribution to the development of this important new play was mentioned several times in Larry Larson's gracious acceptance speech.

ET Award Winner Gets "Best of Atlanta" Kudo from the Loaf! Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, Karen Wurl (MISS MACBETH) received the 2005 Critics' Choice for Best Local Playwright in Creative Loafing's annual "Best of Atlanta" issue. Karen was the Georgia playwright we produced in our first annual Festival, back in 1999 ONLY CHILDREN.

And Did We Mention that 2004 CL pick for Best Local Playwright was Lauren Gunderson, winner of Award in 2001 and 2004. "The Essential Theatre is the future of southern writing. I will always credit them with my early success and confidence," says Gunderson. Lauren's new play BABY M was given a staged reading at Actor's Express in November. She's doing very well now, has been produced and received commissions around the country, and is currently in the MFA playwriting program at NYU. Her play, The THE VANGOGH CAFE was produced by Synchronicity Performance Group.

Valetta Anderson, who won the Essential Prize for LEAVING LIMBO, had her newest play, HALLELEUJAH STREET BLUES, produced by Atlanta's Horizon Theatre in July of 2008.

In 2000 we produced IMAGES IN SMOKE by Decatur's Karla Jennings, which was named by Creative Loafing as one of the Fifteen Best Theatre Productions of the year. Since then her work has been produced locally by Push-Push Theater and Working Title Productions, and she recently won the 2005 Playwrights First Award (an $1,000 prize given by New York's National Arts Club) for her technological thriller THE RUBY VECTOR Previous winners include Margaret Edson's WIT.