Free preshow conversation led by Amina McIntyre of Hush Harbor Lab, featuring playwright Kelundra Smith and more.

Join Hush Harbor Lab, Essential Theatre, Impact Theatre and Synchronicity Theatre for a conversation led by Amina McIntyre of Hush Harbor Lab, featuring playwright Kelundra Smith and more. Hear these powerful women speak about their own creative processes and their different paths to artistic and professional success, including The Wash‘s own journey from idea to its current World Premiere Production.

Stay after for the Pay What You Can performance of 

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Registration is now open for Essential Theatre’s online Introduction to Playwriting course, which meets on Tuesday afternoons  June through mid-July and is offered free of charge in partnership with Fulton County Arts & Culture.

Hungry for a challenge? Registration is also open for our 10 Minute Play Bootcamp, a four-week in-person playwriting intensive that concludes with a public showcase of participants’ plays as part of the 2024 Essential Theatre Play Festival.

Read what past participants have to say about their experiences, and join us!

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We’re excited to announce the lineup for the 25th Annual Essential Theatre Play Festival, which will be running from August 9 – September 1 at 7 Stages!  For our Silver Anniversary Festival we will continue our long tradition of bringing new work by Georgia playwrights to the stage by producing a repertory of two World Premiere productions, along with staged readings and other special presentations.

Opening the Festival on August 9 will be The Other Part of the Picture, a comic drama about a group of students who find a mysterious batch of old letters in the house two of them are living in.

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We are pleased and excited to announce that the 2024 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award winner is Emily McClain, with The Rock & The Hard Place! Her play will receive a full production in this summer’s Festival as well as a $1,000 cash prize. The 2024 Award is sponsored by Could Be Pretty Cool, our Playwriting Award Sponsor since 2021. Emily will be honored at this year’s Celebration of Georgia Playwrights event in April – plan to join us and show your support for Emily and your appreciation for Georgia’s rich dramatic heritage!

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The deadline for the 2025 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award competition is April 23, 2024.

The only competition exclusively dedicated to the work of Georgia playwrights, the winning play will receive both a full production and a $1,000 cash prize. Playwrights must be current Georgia residents, and the plays must be previously unproduced. There are no restrictions as to style, length or subject matter.

Email your script to [email protected] or submit it here today:

Submit a play

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Now through April 30, purchase a Two-, Four-, or Eight-Ticket Festival Pass to guarantee priority access to your preferred dates for this summer’s shows. 

Festival Pass holders will have 48 hour early access on July 1 and 2 to redeem your pass for individual tickets and ensure you get seats according to your preferred schedule before tickets become available to the general public on July 3.

Our Silver Anniversary Festival is shaping up to be the most jam-packed festival yet, so don’t miss out on this chance to immerse yourself in the best of Georgia’s theater scene this summer!

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Join Essential Theatre on Sunday April 28 for a Celebration of Georgia Playwrights!

Meet the 2024 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award Winner, Emily McClain, and celebrate Essential’s – and Georgia’s – rich theatre tradition and the community in which our playwrights grow and thrive.

RSVP

At our Celebration of Georgia Playwrights Event, you’ll get to:

Mix and mingle with folks who, like you, are proud of the literary and dramatic heritage of the place we call home. 

Meet the 2024 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award winner, Emily McClain, and hear about her show, which we’ll be premiering at the 2024 Essential Theatre Play Festival this summer.

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Now through April 16, submit your video submissions for our General Auditions! 

Submit your video audition to [email protected] by April 16, 2024. Auditions should consist of two contrasting monologues with a total length of no more than four minutes.

Please use subject line: [YOUR NAME] GENERAL AUDITION.

PLEASE NOTE: The 2024 Essential Theatre Play Festival will take place August 9 – September 1, 2024 at 7 Stages Theatre in Atlanta, GA. Rehearsals will take place in various locations in the metro area, generally during weekday evenings and weekend days, in July and August.

The Festival will feature a repertory of two full productions – the World Premieres of Peter Hardy’s The Other Part of the Picture (winner of playwriting prizes from New York Script Awards and Best Script Awards – London) and Emily McClain’s The Rock &

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Great News! We have selected our 7 playwrights for the First Annual Southern Fried Bake-Off taking place on January 5-6, 2024 at Core Dance in downtown Decatur!

Congratulations to John Mabey, Victoria Nation, R.P. Singletary, Hank Kimmel, Nathan Jerpe, Diane Dierks, and Marita A. McKee! Follow us on social media to find out more about each of these talented folks.

Don’t miss out on this fun and creative way to jumpstart your new year. Tickets to the 7pm public performance on January 6 are NOW available at EssentialTheatreSouthernFriedBakeOffJan2024.eventbrite.com

Y’all come play with us and watch creativity unfold!

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