Festival Production History

1999
Little Egypt by Lynn Siefert
Desdemona, a play about a handkerchief by Paula Vogel
*Little Children by Karen Wurl

2000
*Images In Smoke by Karla Jennings
The Water Children by Wendy MacLeod
*A Lovely Undertow by Peter Hardy

2001
Cruel Disclosures by Bill Canning
Private Eyes by Steven Dietz
*Parts They Call Deep by Lauren Gunderson

2002
Betty’s Summer Vacation by Christopher Durang
Book of Days by Lanford Wilson
*Warts by Bill Gibson

2003
Fuddy Meers by David Lindsay-Abaire
The Countess by Gregory Murphy
*Speaking Nazi by Karen Page

2004
The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told by Paul Rudnick
Flying Through Life In A Fetal Position by Daniel Meredith
*Background by Lauren Gunderson

2005
The Late Henry Moss by Sam Shepard
Going To St. Ives by Lee Blessing
*Miss Macbeth by Karen Wurl, Creative Loafing Critics Pick for Best Atlanta Playwright 2005

2006
*Charm School by Larry Larson and Eddie Levi Lee
The Book of Liz by Amy and David Sedaris
*Leaving Limbo by Valetta Anderson

2007
Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge by Christopher Durang
*Fix Me So I Can Stand by Jean Sterrett, Metropolitan Atlanta Theater Award for "Best Original Work", Creative Loafing Critics Pick for Best Atlanta Playwright 2008
*Night Travels by Charlotte Fleck, Karen Wurl, Ellen McQueen & Company

2008
Valhalla by Paul Rudnick
After Ashley by Gina Gionfriddo
*West of Eden by Letitia Sweitzer

2009
*Jim Crow and the Rhythm Darlings by Vinnie Meli, Metropolitan Atlanta Theater Award for "Best Original Work"
Ice Glen by Joan Ackermann
Food For Fish by Adam Szymkowicz

2010
The Darker Face of the Earth by Rita Dove
Sally and Glen at the Palace by Peter Hardy, Creative Loafing Critics Pick for Best Atlanta Playwright 2010
*Qualities of Starlight by Gabriel Jason Dean

2011
A Sleeping Country by Melanie Marnich
Great Falls by Lee Blessing
*A Thousand Circlets by Theroun D’Arcy Patterson

*Designates World Premiere

What the Critics Have to Say!

Qualities of Starlight
“A work of great imagination which is directed by Peter Hardy, superbly acted and wonderfully set … it is a terrific show and an enjoyable evening, one you do not want to miss.” -- Bob Heller, Publishers Feature Service

Darker Face of the Earth
"I would really like people to see this play. It’s an amazing production and it’s an experience that I think could only happen in a place like Atlanta, with the closeness of the theatre and the beauty of the work that these actors and this director – what they’ve done is really amazing." -- Ms. Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize Winning, Poet Laureate

Sally and Glen at the Palace
“Peter Hardy’s Sally and Glen at the Palace is a lovely valentine to the movies, a trivia buff’s dream and a sweet, coming-of-age story about friendships made in unlikely places. You have to admire Hardy’s delicate approach and the winning performances of Kate Graham (Sally) and Jacob York (Glen). York is a wonderful comic actor who ultimately reveal his character’s tenderness and vulnerability ... Graham and York are two young performers to watch.” --Wendell Brock, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jim Crow and the Rhythm Darlings
"Playwright Vynnie Meli's Jim Crow and the Rhythm Darlings draws from a seemingly bottomless wellspring of drama. Director Betty Hart builds to some undeniably gripping confrontations....Essential Theatre offers an affecting homage to some of the unsung women of jazz." -- Curt Holman, Creative Loafing

Food for Fish
"This play by the brilliant young playwright, Adam Szymkowicz, is one strange work of art... it is compelling, humorous, and I would give it a 9 on the proverbial scale." -- Robert Heller, Publisher's Feature Service

After Ashley
" A taut, timely drama about the public's lust for reality TV tragedy and the media's eagerness to supply it." -- Suzanne Van Atten, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Ice Glen
"ICE GLEN is both one of the best scripts and best overall productions I've seen in the nine years I've been in Atlanta, and Ellen's direction is flawlessly nuanced. A true must-see." -- Evan Guilford-Blake, playwright

"It's one of the best shows in Atlanta this year!" -- Leonard Pallats

Valhalla
"One of the goofiest plays you'll see this summer .... the cast makes the production well worth seeing. Payne's comedic touch is on sharp display; Morris shows considerable talent, and Graham has a charming presence ... the dynamic Williams chews scenery delectably."-- Southern Voice

Fix Me So I Can Stand
"Atlanta's scrappy Essential Theatre is a company with a mission to cultivate Georgia talent with its Essential Theatre Playwriting Award and stage the world premiere of a local playwright, the company's sincere excitement about theater is undeniable. Fix Me So I Can Stand presents a surprising and well-textured treatment of still-relevant Southern issues. An actual incident inspired Fix Me So I Can Stand's portrayal of an African-American unjustly condemned to death. [Spencer Stephens] captures the play's most intriguing dimension, in revealing the soul-crushing effects of living on death row for more than half a decade. Stephens sells Fix Me So I Can Stand's idea that spending years under a death sentence is like being killed twice over." -- Curt Holman, Creative Loafing

Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge
"This is one you just have to see ... it is a total scream. Head down to Euclid Avenue and get ready for an evening of hilarity." -- Bob Heller, Publishers Field Syndicate

"Mrs. Cratchit turns out to be another of Durang's cranky heroines who balk at conformity ... Linden's funny, against-the-grain complaining makes a great foil to the manic cheer of the holiday in general and the Dickens play in particular. The show becomes an amusing mash-up of It's a Wonderful Life and other Dickens works, with Sarah Falkenburg amusingly playing an oversized "Little" Nell" -- Curt Holman, Creative Loafing

Charm School
"The jokes are as plentiful as they are uncomfortable in Larry Larson and Eddie Levi Lee's new comedy Charm School, a witty and perceptive look at racial attitudes that takes place during a diversity sensitivity training seminar ... the more we laugh, the more we come to question some of our own values ... the show is very well-cast by director Ellen McQueen ... Best of all: Spencer Stephens and Kathleen Link as an interracial couple who (hilariously) enact various instructional scenarios during the seminar."-- Bert Osborne, SUNDAY PAPER

"Charm School teaches bigotry a lesson with humor. Short, broad sketches that hinge on racial tension provide energetic running jokes in Essential Theatre's world premiere production of Charm School ... scrutinizes society's changing attitudes toward ethnic tolerance, a topic that's both timely and rife with comedic possibilities ... approaches political correctness not with a chain saw but a magnifying
glass ... Charm School compellingly sets ideologies against each other." -- Curt Holman, CREATIVE LOAFING

The Book of Liz
"BOOK OF LIZ ROLLS OUT GOOFY, GOOEY BALL OF FUN. In this ridiculous concoction, Sedaris family fans will see glimmers of Amy's hopelessly lost Jerri Blank ("Strangers With Candy") and David's fascination with misfits, potty humor and kitsch. The latter's satirical essays can be splendidly entertaining, but in this picaresque howler, the siblings give voice to their warped observations by sketching 3-D cartoons that exist in an outer frontier of silliness. Director Lee Nowell's cast is game to wallow in the tasteless fun and chew on a script that riffs on religious hypocrisy and the empowerment kick while sending up vintage Hollywood potboilers and American classics from The Scarlet Letter to The Crucible. In Liz, [the Essential Theatre has] picked a turkey - in a good way. Stuffed with cheese and sleaze and covered with nuts, the show is a sinful treat for Sedaris fans and their brethren." -- Wendell Brock, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Amy and David Sedaris' The Book of Liz follows a member of a low-tech Amish-style sect as she ventures into the brave new world of strip-mall America ... [Rachel] Craw makes the woman a sympathetic, gently humorous foil to the kooky characters she encounters, from a dancing Mr. Peanut to a pilgrim-themed restaurant populated by members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Director Lee Nowell sets a snappy pace and gives enough leeway to Topher Payne's posing, hair-waving Brother Brightbee and Dede Bloodworth's dithering Sister Butterworth to find huge laughs without going too far over the top ... inspired silliness." -- Curt Holman, Creative Loafing

"LIZ charms ... Directed by Lee Nowell ... and led by Rachel Craw's winning performance in the title role (some of her "gloomy expressions" are priceless), the agreeable cast also includes Charles Swint, Dede Bloodworth, Alex Van and Kathleen Link (whose Mr. Peanut bit is a hoot)." --Bert Osborne, SUNDAY PAPER

Leaving Limbo
"In the world premiere of Leaving Limbo, Atlanta playwright Valetta Anderson sends a modern-day hip-hop artist back to an African village in the pre-1500s ... [she] draws a substantial contrast between traditional Nigerian values and the rootlessness of contemporary African-American men. Anderson begins with the engrossing, terrifying spectacle of Africans imprisoned in the hold of a ship, completing their Middle Passage to the new world ... Leaving Limbo doesn't take the easy route of making the village a de facto Garden of Eden that shames the permissiveness of today's society. Chuck sees examples of a closely knit community that honors its elders and traditions, but recoils at the village's violent superstitions and slave-holding practices ..." -- Curt Holman, Creative Loafing

"Thought-provoking and moving ... the play travels from past to present (and back again) to correlate the modern-day struggles of Chuck and his friends with the historical plight of their ancestors, African villagers uprooted and sold into slavery generations ago." -- Bert Osborne, SUNDAY PAPER

The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told
"In the hands of Essential Theatre Artistic Director Peter Hardy, a vibrant, young cast plays the humor to the hilt, never missing a beat." - David Magazine.

The Late Henry Moss
"HENRY builds to a powerful metaphor. Shepard suggests that a man who turns on his family is little better than a ghost" - Curt Holman, Creative Loafing.

Going to St. Ives
"With her intimidating combination of regal bearing and incisive intellect, May sets off ST. IVES' intriguing tensions of patient vs. doctor, royalty vs. civilian, black native vs. white colonial." "Singh turns May into a vivid, original theatrical presence, more proud of her lifetime of suffering than her royal trappings." - Curt Holman, Creative Loafing

Miss Macbeth
"Atlanta writer Karen Wurl delivers a doozy of a backstage farce in MISS MACBETH, in which thespian motives and manners are ridiculed with comic brio ... Director David Crowe keeps the 12-member cast suspended in a state of ridiculousness with its delirious pace, campy shtick and fake blood, MISS MACBETH is a delightful laugh-bath." Wendell Brock, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"The Essential Theatre's world premiere of Atlantan Karen Wurl's MISS MACBETH is clever comedy." - Dave Hayward, Backstage.

"Best Atlanta Playwright, Karen Wurl" Creative Loafing

Book of Days
Chosen by Creative Loafing as one of the Top Ten Atlanta Theatre Productions of 2002.

"Wilson superbly uses the smallest of details to create the textures of small-town life ... achingly lyrical moments ... a gripping story, like watching the Moral Majority stage an unfriendly takeover of OUR TOWN." - Curt Holman, Creative Loafing

Images in Smoke
Chosen by Creative Loafing as one of the 20 Best Atlanta Theatre Productions of 2000.

"Many of the roles reveal unexpected shadings, which the young cast explore expertly [director Peter] Hardy keeps the action moving at a crisp rate... IMAGES IN SMOKE offers a Ginsu-sharp slice of life, capturing the flashes of affection and hostility, intoxication and frustration, that young single people can experience at any given get-together." - Curt Holman, Creative Loafing

Desdemona
"DESDEMONA: A PLAY ABOUT A HANDKERCHIEF resounds with great insight and imagination about the minds, lives and loves of women ... a significant revisioning of Shakespeare's women ... Essential Theatress production of the play showcases good performances by all three cast members ... for lovers of Shakespeare, Vogel's DESDEMONA mustn't be missed." - Ami Mattison, ETC.