Monday night’s Bare Essentials Play Reading is Dead Gay Body, written by Abraham Johnson. Read on to learn a little more about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing Monday night!

Playwright Abraham Johnson

Abraham Johnson (all pronouns) is an Atlanta-based playwright who writes Big Messy Queer plays centering around audience communion. Abe has been named a two-time Lambda Literary Playwriting Fellow, a resident artist at the Sundress Academy, and a finalist for the 2020 National Young Playwrights Residency. In 2021 Abe will be a 4x finalist for the Greenhouse Residency at SPACE on Ryder Farms, as well as a playwriting scholar at the Suwanee Writers’ Conference. Production or development credits include the New Georgia Group, the Horizon Theater, Process Theater, Out of Box Theater, Essential Theatre, Synchronicity Theatre, Out Front Theater, Langhorne Players, the Classic City Fringe Festival, the Lionheart Theater Company, the Workshop Theater, and the intern/apprentice companies at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center.

Hi Abe! So what can you tell us about the play we’ll be hearing Monday night?

Strange, homosexual things are happening at Ronald Reagan High after the suicide of Twinkie McBottoms. When Twinkie’s last words are discovered–“I hate straight people”– the school counselor is thrust into action, determined to create a safe space for straight students to be themselves again. She will have to team up with the first openly gay student body president, a secretly senstive football player, a garden-loving Principal, and even the audience to organize a “Diversity Day” that these heterosexuals will never forget. But first, we have to figure out: why are there dead gay bodies popping up all over school? And who the heck has even heard of Laramie, Wyoming? * If you like queer anger, straight people being idiots, and LGBTQ history, this is a play for you.

Where did you get the idea for this play? What made you want to write it?

I started this play a week after the Pulse Shooting in Orlando. I remember being totally shocked and frozen from the news… until I started seeing all of these #thoughtsandprayers posts. A ton of people I loved and still love were trying to bury this horrible event with hashtags. I was like, “Um, we actually might need something a little more powerful? Right now?” So that energy yanked me into the world of this play. Originally, the first couple of drafts were really somber and reaching towards a logic that wasn’t there. Then when I produced an early draft at the University of Georgia I had this epiphany that there didn’t need to be logic. I was a younger playwright then, and I thought I needed to write straight realism to be taken seriously. But once I leaned into the absurdity of trying to hashtag away hate crimes, it cracked open the world of this play.

How did you get into playwriting?

Writing has always been a part of my family – my grandfather was a poet, both my parents are writers, and my brother is a writer. So writing was always something I gravitated towards. It wasn’t until around 11th grade that I fell in love with acting and theater. After a couple of school productions and getting closer with my high school theater teacher, he heard I had won a national award for a short story I had written. He prompted me to try writing a play, and I pretty immediately was like, “Um, literally all playwrights are dead, what are you talking about?” Finally I caved and wrote a pretty bad one-act play. He organized a reading of it with a couple of theater students, and at the end of that reading he announced that we would be producing it in the Fall. That was my big kick-start moment.

Wow! Thank you, High School Theater Teacher!

So that first play reading obviously had a pretty big impact on you as a playwright…As you’ve developed as a writer since then, what has been the importance of staged readings in your own creative process and the development of your plays?

To me, staged readings are the point in the development process when you get to dream the most technicolor version of your play possible. And you get to do that with actors! And a director! I miss the tiny dramas of in-person readings – people tapping pencils, talking to actors next to water fountains, the awkward parking lot goodbyes – but even in virtual readings there are so many things to learn from actors and directors innovating within the confines of a zoom box.

What do you hope to gain from this Bare Essentials experience? What has your experience with this reading been so far?

Getting to have a majority Black creative team on this project has already brought so many new dimensions to this script, especially because at the core of this play is how politics, identity, and diversity can be manipulated by supremacist systems. Not to mention how complicated the question is of “who is complicit?” Talking with Parris and Lexi about the “hashtag activism” of Ronald Reagan High has hit a well of recognized experience, and that’s shifted some of my edits about how complicit F***** is, and what systems of power are at work in this world. So really I just hope that by the end of this process we’ve all learned a little more about how much power these characters are wielding.

We had our first cold-read of the script last weekend and I was stunned from the actors. They clicked into place in a way I haven’t felt with this script before. What’s been most exciting is that they’re not just magnifying the comedy, but they’re adding so much dimension that I didn’t know was there to explore. The role of F***** has grown more tragic. Counselor is a volcanic hot mess. Principal Nancy brings such a sense of history to the world, and Buck has defined into such a loveable himbo. The actors are bringing the heat in this reading, and of course that’s due in part to the vision and support that our director Parris and stage manager Lexi have been able to provide.

That’s fantastic to hear! I can’t wait for the reading AND the conversation on Monday night. Do you have any other projects on the horizon that we should be aware of?

Yes, actually! On November 21st I have a virtual reading of my script “and we will eat your grief” with RDA Producing in Syracuse, NY. I’m really excited for this experience just because the reading is a part of their Frontera Residency program–– as the inaugural playwright, I got to pitch them literally whatever 3 projects I wanted to work on. Additionally, in summer 2021 I’ll be a playwriting scholar at the Suwanee Writer’s Conference which I’m thrilled about.

Readers, note the links to RDA above – if you’d like to see another Abe Johnson play, it looks like you’ll have the chance very soon!

Abe, do you mind if I ask how you found out about Essential Theatre and our playwriting contest?

I met Peter Hardy when he gave a panel at the the 2016 Horizon Young Playwrights Festival. In talking to him afterwards about the Essential playwriting contest, I had no idea that playwrights like Lauren Gunderson and Topher Payne came out of this theater. That was a big “aha” moment for me–– realizing that Atlanta (and Essential more specifically) had helped support and launch such major national voices.

And we’re glad to be able to play a role in supporting your voice as well – you’ve already come a long way from “Um, literally all playwrights are dead, what are you talking about?”

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Dead Gay Body will take place online, starting at 7:30pm this Monday,  November 16.
Sign up through Eventbrite to get your link to attend!

Directed by Parris Sarter. Stage Managed by Lexi McKay.
CAST: Marcie Millard, Markell Williams, Mia Kristin Smith, Chris Harding

All readings in the Bare Essentials Play Reading Series are free and open to the public thanks to support from Georgia Humanities, in partnership with the Georgia Department of Economic Development, through funding from the Georgia General Assembly. Funding for this program is also provided by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. This series is curated by Essential’s founding Artistic Director, Peter Hardy.

Funding for this program is provided by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners.

Thursday night’s Bare Essentials Play Reading is Smoked, written by Thomas Brazzle. Read on to learn a little more about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing on Thursday!

Playwright Thomas Brazzle

Thomas Brazzle is an actor, writer and director based in Georgia. After spending time studying puppetry and performance abroad in London and Barcelona, Thomas returned to the US to focus on creating new work and working in regional theatre. He has performed at The Guthrie in Minneapolis, Shakespeare and Company (Lenox, MA), Connecticut Rep, The Alley Theatre (Houston, TX), TheatreSquared (Fayetteville, AR) and many other regional theaters. He now writes and directs films with his production company Whet Ink Productions. Recently, Whet Ink’s first web series, Infinite Jest, has been selected for many film festivals across the world. Thomas also serves as the Chair of Programming for the historic Morton Theatre in Athens, GA. Thomas graduated from Stephen F Austin State University in 2008 with a BFA in Theatre, and in 2014 from The University of Connecticut with a MFA in Acting. (www.thomasbrazzle.com / www.whetink.com)

Hi Thomas, can you tell us in your own words about the play we’ll be seeing Thursday night?

Sure! Smoked is a collection of ideas that stem around legacy, brotherhood, family, gentrification and what will we leave behind for the next generation once our time is done. During the rapid expansion of gentrification in present day Austin, TX the past and future collide within the fracturing walls of Flint’s Bar-B-Que. Joe Flint and his brother Jake have ran their families’ restaurant for over forty years, and it has been a stalwart in the community for over half a century. Friends like Doc, Rodney and Red frequent the restaurant so much that they are considered practically family. The college student employees try to keep the restaurant afloat and take matters into their own hands when they hire a new employee to pick up the slack, Michaela. A bright, smart, hip and business savvy woman, Michaela has many ideas to help save the restaurant from the onslaught of gentrified businesses taking out family owned establishments like Flint’s. However, Michaela has her work cut out for her as she tries to convince Joe to let go of the old guard and usher in new ideas. Just when they seem to meet on common ground, a new proprietor, Patillo, from Mississippi comes to Austin to buy out the last of the local African American businesses to make way for his fancy new housing and business developments. Faced with the reality they are growing old and the next generation may pass them by for the fresh and new, Joe and Jake with the help of friends, new and old, discover how they can hold on to their past and family legacy, while lifting up the future.

Wow, it sounds like this play could also have been set in any of a number of neighborhoods around Atlanta. How did you decide that Austin, TX, is where this story needed to take place?

I am originally from Texas, born and raised. Many of these characters are inspired from people I grew up with. The banter between the older men at the restaurant are literally conversations I remember hearing coming from my living room growing up between my father and his friends. The restaurant setting is inspired by one of my favorite restaurants, Crystal’s Pizza, in Irving, TX. It was a magical place, simple and pleasant.
[But] this play came about from many moments in my life.  The idea came about because of my time living in Harlem, NY. I saw how gentrification quickly swallowed up the culture of Harlem, and how its residents were being pushed out up north into the Bronx. Today, the Bronx is starting to become gentrified and again those residents are being pushed out. This broke my heart and I felt the story of African Americans losing their businesses and homes to change was something I wanted to tell. However, I wanted to tell it in a place that many people don’t know about when they hear the word gentrification.
Texas, specifically Austin, TX, is seeing a lot of tech companies buy up land and build new facilities. Colleges are buying up land, and real estate investors are building overpriced condos to take advantage of young college students venturing into Austin. It’s “the new gold rush, “as one article put it in my research about Austin. Austin has had a dark history about its inhabitants always being pushed out. I felt it was the glue that connected all of my ideas about legacy. Ask many Texans and they will tell you that Texas has such a rich history, but the state is quick to bury it away. This play hopefully puts a spotlight on what is happening in Austin and throughout the state.

Hopefully so!
So tell me, how did you get into playwriting, anyway?

I took a playwriting class in undergrad with playwright Jack Heifner. The class was amazing and I instantly was hooked. Furthermore, I have begun to write much more because I was finding in my acting career that I was being cast in plays predominately written by white men. I noticed the lack of diversity in playwrights on theatre’s season announcements, and this made me want to begin to share my voice and help change the narrative that there aren’t enough plays by artists of color.

Thank you for your action and your advocacy – and your creative talent! Hopefully this reading will not only benefit you as a writer but also support the changing of that narrative. It’s certainly something we at Essential are eager to see happen!

So our first rehearsal was last night. What has your experience with this reading been thus far?

I had a wonderful conversation with Taryn about the play and what it meant to me, and how it came about. I also got to see how Taryn connected to the play and it was nice to see that the themes were already clear to them.

That’s excellent! I’m definitely looking forward to the audience talkback after this reading. Speaking of which, what do you hope to gain from this reading, as a writer, or for your script?

I hope to hear feedback from the actors, director and those that tune in. I have lived in the world of this play for a while, and to be able to hear different perspectives helps me understand the play on a deeper level, because I begin to see what it brings about for people other than myself. I am eager to see what moments stick with the actors and the audience, and what characters they gravitate or are affected by.

If our audience wants to follow you beyond Thursday night’s reading, what’s the best way to do that?

You can find my work as a writer and director at www.whetink.com, and keep up with my acting career at www.thomasbrazzle.com. I can be seen in a national commercial for Cricket Wireless that is airing now, and I am starring in the film Lake Artifact on Amazon Prime. I am currently in the writer’s room with my team for Season 2 of my web series Infinite Jest,* set to film next Fall.

*exciting trivia for Essential fans: Ash Anderson, who first appeared on Essential’s stage as Ada Lovelace in our 2017 regional premiere production of Ada and the Memory Engine, appears as Ariel in Infinite Jest

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Smoked will take place online, starting at 8pm this Thursday,  November 12.
Sign up through Eventbrite to get your link to attend!

Directed by Taryn Carmona. Stage Managed by Dionna D. Davis.
CAST: Herman Spearman (Joe Flint),  Byron Willis (Jake Flint),  Edmarie Montes (Michaela Potts/Laura Flint), Jeffrey J. Jackson (Dwayne/Rodney), Greg Hunter (Kalob/Red), Roger Payano (Doc), John Doyle (Quinn Potts), and Matthew Baldoni (Clarence Patillo/Hooded Figure)

All readings in the Bare Essentials Play Reading Series are free and open to the public thanks to support from Georgia Humanities, in partnership with the Georgia Department of Economic Development, through funding from the Georgia General Assembly. Funding for this program is also provided by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. This series is curated by Essential’s founding Artistic Director, Peter Hardy.

Funding for this program is provided by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners.

Read on to find out about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing Monday night!

Tell us a little about yourself, personally and professionally.

I am an actor, playwright, and director who came to Atlanta from Chicago a decade ago. I’ve had two full-length plays produced in Atlanta: Honor The System at Out of Box Theatre, and Steal My Heart with New Origins Theatre Company. I’ve also had numerous short plays produced by Onion Man Productions and others, and I wrote, produced, and directed four sketch comedy shows under my former company Give Us Brains! I also write and perform political sketch comedy for the weekly podcast Barely Audible Whisper. As an actor, I can currently be seen as George Bailey in OnStage Atlanta’s production of It’s A Wonderful Life. I work frequently at Out of Box Theatre, most recently this summer in Entertaining Lesbians. I spent a year as an apprentice at the Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse when I was new to Atlanta, and later performed in several plays there including playing Demetrius in Midsummer Night’s Dream. I also toured several children’s shows with Georgia Ensemble Theatre, and performed and/or directed with various other theatre companies, including Academy Theatre, Onion Man Productions, Tribal Theatre Group, and Merely Players Presents. I am married to the lovely and talented Emily Sams Brown, who I met at Out of Box Theatre when we played twins in The House of Yes. We welcomed our first child, Rayme Claire, last year, and we have two sweet dogs, Archie and Ruby. I work at Emory University School of Medicine, training actors to portray patients as part of the medical school curriculum.

Please share in your own words a little about the play we’ll be seeing.

In short, this is a play about how the internet makes us angry on purpose. It’s a criticism of journalism and the way we consume it. It’s also a criticism of the gig economy, and the listlessness it has imposed on a generation. The main character, Rina, begins the play with no aim other than to find a foothold somewhere in the world. But when she finds a place where she can make an impact, she also finds that she can do some damage. The Outrage Machine is not a satire, but my satirist roots certainly show as I use humor to shed light on a serious societal problem.

Where did you get the idea for this play? What made you want to write it?

The first version of this play was written before the 2016 election, when I realized how many web journalists seemed to be intentionally provoking anger instead of presenting facts objectively. Then 2016 happened, and I practically had to rewrite the whole thing. The ideas I was trying to introduce were now mainstream, and the play became more of an exploration of how things got like this.

How did you get into playwriting?

I’ve always had a drive to write, but never been drawn to writing narrative. When I first tried writing dialogue, it clicked. That’s what I want to write. For most of my young life, it was all about comedy–sketch and parody–but as I grew up and got to know myself as an emotional human being, I realized how fulfilling it is to let emotion into my writing, and how, in many instances, it makes the comedy funnier.

What is the importance of staged readings in your own creative process and the development of your play?

It’s one of the best parts of the process. There are some things you just don’t catch until you hear them out loud. The actors’ perspective teaches you about your work, and you realize the importance of some things, and the unimportance of others. Hearing the audience reacting to just the words–not the staging, not the antics, not the design — only happens in this setting.

What has your experience with this reading been so far?

Pure excitement. I love the cast Peter put together, and can’t wait to hear what they do.

Where else can we see your work, either recently, currently or in the coming year(s)?

I had a reading of another new full-length play, a romantic comedy titled Happy Places, at Out of Box Theatre at the beginning of the year. And Out of Box is currently producing one of my sketches as part of Santa After Hours.

How did you find out about Essential and the playwriting contest?

I worked with Peter Hardy on the touring show And Then They Came For Me at GET, and as a creator, supporter, and fan of new works, I’ve followed Essential ever since.

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The Outrage Machine will be read at the West End Performing Arts Center on Monday, December 9, at 7:30pm. Directed by Peter Hardy.

Readers: Rylee Bunton, Bridget McCarthy, Charles Travontia Thomas, Joey Davila, Sean Kelley, Parris Sarter, Aaron Gotlieb, Najah Ali

All readings in the Bare Essentials Play Reading Series are free and open to the public. This series is curated by Essential’s founding Artistic Director, Peter Hardy.

December 8 through January 22

For the first time in several years, we are THRILLED to announce that Essential Theatre has been awarded a power2give campaign from the City of Atlanta in support of the 2020 Essential Theatre Play Festival!
Our campaign is LIVE December 8 through January 22!

As a matching program, power2give is a gift to donors and Essential alike: for every dollar we raise through power2give, the City of Atlanta will contribute matching funds – up to $20,000!

If you think supporting Georgia’s writers and artists is important, if you enjoy seeing great new theatre by playwrights from your community, if you believe that Georgia’s playwrights are great American playwrights and want to help us amplify their voices, if you have enjoyed Essentials’ work in the past and would like to support it in the future, If you appreciate seeing new creative and cultural opportunities represented in West End, the Festival’s home since 2014, or in Georgia as a whole, please consider making a donation to Essential Theatre through power2give this holiday season – and see your dollars have double the impact!

Join us at the West End Performing Arts Center for our next Bare Essentials Play Reading:

THE OUTRAGE MACHINE
Written by Daniel Carter Brown
Directed by Peter Hardy

“Is something that was supposed to bring us all together only driving us further apart?”

The Outrage Machine is a semi-comedic exploration of internet journalism, social media, and the culture of outrage. Twenty-something Rina Marsh gets a job writing headlines for The Centurion, an upstart website aiming to stand out for its integrity and responsibility. Rina finds that pushing people’s anger buttons results in more views, and she and the website become rapidly successful. But one headline goes too far, and Rina finds out what happens when an angry public gets out of control.

Cast:

Rylee Bunton, Bridget McCarthy, Charles Travontia Thomas, Joey Davila, Sean Kelley, Parris Sarter, Aaron Gotlieb, Najah Ali

“I was drawn to this play because I found it to be a sharply-observed, fast-paced look at a real thing that’s happening in society today — the way social media and the internet have created an environment in which anger is fostered and manipulated to drive commerce. It’s also a compelling and believable story about a young woman looking for a way to make a living by helping people to be more well-informed, only to find that the truth isn’t always the surest way to generate clicks.”

-Essential Theatre Artistic Director Peter Hardy

Join us Monday night!

All readings in the Bare Essentials series are free and open to the public. Free parking in the Wells Fargo lot next door. Be sure to stay after for exciting conversation with the director, cast and playwright!