Join Essential Theatre on April 29 for a Celebration of Georgia Playwrights!

Meet the newest addition to the Essential Theatre legacy, Matt Hoffman, and celebrate Essential’s – and Georgia’s – rich theatre tradition and the community in which our playwrights grow and thrive.

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 2023 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award winner, Matt Hoffman, and hear about his show, which we’ll be premiering at the 2023 Essential Theatre Play Festival this summer.

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Now through March 28, submit your video submissions for our General Auditions! 

Submit your video audition to [email protected] by March 28, 2023. 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 2023 Essential Theatre Play Festival will take place July 28-August 27, 2023 at the West End Performing Arts Center in Atlanta, GA. Rehearsals will take place in various locations in the metro area, generally during weekday evenings and weekend days, in June and July.

The Festival will feature a repertory of two full productions – the World Premieres of Matthew Hoffman’s The Manuscript (Winner of the 2023 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award) and Beverly Austin’s The Wishing Place (co-winner of the 2020 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award),

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We’re proud to announce that Matthew Hoffman has won the 2023 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award for his play The Manuscript!

The Manuscript is a powerful and complex drama about two women, the mother and the widow of a recently deceased writer, struggling over the emotional and artistic legacy of the woman they loved and lost.

The play was part of our Bare Essentials staged reading series in the Spring of 2022, and we’re excited to give it a full production in the 2023 Essential Theatre Play Festival, which will run from July 28 through August 27 of this year at the West End Performing Arts Center.

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Jim Farmer | Jan 30, 2023

Twenty-nine Georgia nonprofit organizations have received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for fiscal year 2023, including several in Atlanta. …Read more

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That’s a wrap!

The 2022 Essential Theatre Play Festival has come to a close. Thanks to everyone who came out to support and enjoy this summer’s shows! 

“It was great to be back in the theatre to see provocative and engaging new work. Congrats and thanks to Peter Hardy for his consistent support of Georgia playwrights.”

“That’s what Essential Theatre does best, spotlighting original works by Georgia playwrights in all their variety, and in repertory, giving you, the audience, a very intense and satisfying summer experience. [They] have found a winning combination this season.”

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Since our festival’s close less than a month ago, Artistic Director Peter Hardy, who does so much to lift up other playwrights’ work, has been jet-setting around the country to receive awards and productions of his own work:

On September 9 he attended the world premiere of his play Kissing Jennifer in the Moonlight as part of the Pittsburgh New Works Festival, and this past Friday night the screenplay version of his stage play Sally and Glen at the Palace, which Essential premiered in 2010, received an award at the Footcandle Film Festival in Hickory,

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This isn’t just any survey.

Essential Theatre has been selected by arts research firm WolfBrown because of our unique Georgia focus, the quality of our work and our longevity in the Atlanta theatre community, to be a part of an Intrinsic Impact research program. 

Please take their quick (approximately 5 minute) survey now!

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On September 18, Essential Theatre, Legacy Park Decatur and the Decatur Arts Alliance hosted a meal as part of Equitable Dinners Atlanta‘s ambitious 5000 people at 500 tables event marking the 116th anniversary of the 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre.

Coordinated by Out of Hand Theater, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, and the Fulton County Remembrance Coalition, this multi-day, city-wide event brought together people of all backgrounds to have vital conversations on how Atlanta’s history connects to systemic issues today – and to inspire positive action for moving forward together. The evening included a shared meal,

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The August 22 Bare Essentials Play Reading is Shark Week by Anneka Rose. Read on to learn a little more about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing Wednesday night!

Anneka Rose, a Los Angeles native, is a recent alum from Emory University, graduating with a degree in playwriting with high honors. Her work usually has underlying or very obvious ties to female rage, focusing on young female protagonists using anger as a catalyst for change. Theater is a space for Anneka to scream, vent, and cry about the current state of our world. She has been featured multiple times at Emory as a student playwright and received high honors on her undergraduate thesis,

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The August 10 Bare Essentials Play Reading is Barbie Liberation Organization by Robert Fuson. Read on to learn a little more about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing Wednesday night!

Robert Fuson (He/They) was raised in Greenville, SC where he attended Furman University and worked in community and professional theatre for 5 years primarily as a director. They moved to Atlanta in 2019, working initially as the Company Manager for Horizon Theatre’s Apprentice Company, which is when he wrote this play, completing it a month before the Covid pandemic hit. Barbie Liberation Organization was accepted for multiple staged readings,

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