Wednesday night’s Bare Essentials reading is The Odds Against Death, co-written by John D. Babcock III (Independent, 2017) and Ted Westby. Read on to find out a little more about the pair, and about the play we’ll be seeing on Wednesday!

The writers:

John D. Babcock III is a writer for Agatha’s – A Taste of Mystery and the Mystery Café of Indianapolis. He is also a writer/performer with Sketchworks Comedy. John was cast in, and wrote additional scenes for, the Sketchworks Comedy production of VAPE THE MUSICAL– a parody of GREASE. VAPE won BroadwayWorld Atlanta’s 2018 award for “Best New Work” (non-professional). In August 2019, VAPE ran at Improv Asylum’s theatre in New York City. John’s play INDEPENDENT – about filmmaker John Cassavetes – received its premier at Essential Theatre’s 2017 Play Festival. John’s other writing credits include on-air scripts for Turner Classic Movies, Laughing Matters corporate entertainment, and the upcoming fantasy/comedy web series “The Campaign.” John enjoyed writing THE ODDS AGAINST DEATH with Ted Westby and looks forward to seeing their work on stage.

Ted Westby hails from a small Midwestern town and never really grew up. After somehow finishing college he spent twenty years writing and producing on-air content for TV stations around the country. During those tumultuous last years he foolishly wrote and produced four no-budget Indie short films that to this day have been seen by less people than it took to make them. For the past decade, after abandoning his steady day job and screenwriting aspirations, he has made his living photographing actors and a few regular people. In the last few years he has co-written two stage plays, a Television Pilot script, and threatened to finish his true-life book detailing his absurd life with photo models. Ted refuses to eat beets and still enjoys listening to music on cassettes and vinyl.

The Play:

THE ODDS AGAINST DEATH is a modern, classic farce in which a simple romantic dinner for two becomes an evening where five people are confronted with deceit, deception, and Death herself. The play “encompasses my feelings toward love, death, and foolish ideals – not necessarily in that order,” says Ted. “Our endeavor was to give an audience both an entertaining evening as well as a few choice bits to contemplate while they walked back to their cars.”

Where did the idea for this play come from?

Initially conceived by co-author Ted Westby as a short film, The Odds Against Death began its life as a good old fashioned farce about love, miscommunication, and death. He introduced the idea to Babcock and the pair fleshed out the idea and made it into a two act play. “I’ve always been fascinated by theoretical characters, ie: Death, Imaginary friends, anyone out of the accepted norms of ‘reality’,: says Ted, adding, “I found it a wonderful concept to have Death actually come and ‘kill’ someone’s romantic ideals, thus forcing them to come face to face with absolute reality.”

How did you get into playwriting?

Ted: I’ve been writing most of my life, predominantly scripts and screenplays. My original introduction to play-writing began years ago at the 24 Plays presented by the good people at the Horizon Theatre. I co-wrote three short plays during three different 24 Hour Play fests. The Odds Against Death is my first full-length stage play.

John: I began writing sketches and stories in grade school. I continued writing through high school and began writing longer pieces in college. I had a natural interest in writing and was something I always kept doing.

What is the importance of staged readings for your creative process and the development of your play? What do you hope to gain from this Bare Essentials experience?

“Staged readings are a great opportunity to hear the characters come alive. It’s beneficial hearing actors read the work out loud and observing how they interpret the character,” observes John. “Reactions to staged readings inform me what areas need work and what areas did well.” He adds, “There are always surprises.”

“Until you hear it out loud, read by voices other than your own, you don’t really hear it live and breathe,” says Ted in agreement.

“THE ODDS AGAINST DEATH has had a handful of private readings,” says John, “but Ted and I are really looking forward to having the play read to an audience. An audience reaction is what we hope to gain from the reading at Bare Essentials.

Ted adds, “This will be our first reading with an impartial audience. This will be a real good test of how it will be received by a general audience… I hope.”

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The Odds Against Death will be read at the West End Performing Arts Center on Monday, August 12, at 7:30pm. Directed by Bill Murphey.

Readers: Mary Saville, Robby Owenby, Evan Cleaver, Diany Rodriguez, Steve Hudson, Christie Brumfield Baggett, Kathleen McManus, and Anne Stainback Davis.

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. This series is curated by Essential’s founding Artistic Director, Peter Hardy.

Monday night’s Bare Essentials reading is Waiting for Big Stuff, written by Allan Dodson. Read on to learn a little more about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing Monday night!

Allan Dodson is a playwright, actor, and director that’s been hanging around Atlanta theater for longer than he’d like to admit. He had a delightful 15 years as a high school theater director and was fortunate enough to study acting under the late William Esper, protege to Sanford Meisner. He’s found himself accidentally specializing in shorter plays, and he’s been produced in various venues around town with a one-act, “Three Hundred and One,” that’s still regularly produced nationally. He says he’d like to be a misunderstood artist, but he can’t quite find the energy.

How did you get into playwriting?

I’ve dabbled in a variety of writing styles over the years, and I’ve even made my living as a writer (NOT a fiction writer). I’ve always enjoyed the rhythms of dialog, and I love live theater, so I’ve gravitated toward playwriting.

Where did you get the idea for this play?

I was dining alone in a fast food joint, and I was told I was Guest 40. It occurred to me that “Guest 40” was my only identity for the next half-hour or so. And a play was born that asks possibly the most important question in the American experience: How long, exactly, will we wait for a burger and an order of rings?

What do you hope to gain from this Bare Essentials experience?

There’s really no experience as valuable as hearing your play read by good actors, seeing how a director interprets it, and seeing how an audience reacts to it. With a staged reading, you can get that experience in a safe place – it becomes a part of the journey.

It’s also nice to get a little exposure, and an honor and confidence-booster to be chosen.

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Waiting for Big Stuff will be read at the West End Performing Arts Center on Monday, August 12, at 7:30pm. Directed by Kati Grace Brown. Readers: Natalie Karp, Charlie Thomas, Jeff Morgan, Sean Kelley, Kirstin Kalvert, Betty Mitchell, Sarah Newby Halicks, Mike Pugh, Alex Pica, Bowen Fox, and Danielle Hopkins.

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. This series is curated by Essential’s founding Artistic Director, Peter Hardy.

Tuesday Night’s Bare Essentials reading is Henry Darger Takes a Walk, written by Rosalind Sullivan-Lovett. Read on to learn a little more about Roz and the play we’ll be seeing on Tuesday!

Hi Roz, tell us a little about yourself!

I’m a recent Atlanta transplant from Portland, Oregon, having graduated from Emory two and a half months ago and stayed put. I’ve been writing plays since I was a Sophomore in high school, but “Henry Darger” was my first to be published and my most successful to date, having been read previously in Theater Emory’s Brave New Works series and at the Tennessee Williams Literary festival, where it won first place in the one act play contest. My next project will be taking my solo show, “And God Forbid It Should Be So,” to New York City, where it is set to be performed at the United Solo Theatre Festival.

And what’s this play about?

“Henry Darger Takes a Walk” is in large part about familial grief and the inheritance of trauma. The suicide of a family member is jarring not only for the nature of its suddenness, but also for its sense of history and its brand-mark on the future. Grace’s journey is not so much about grieving as searching for a way to save her remaining family members from a narrative of mental illness that she fears threatens to swallow all of them, including herself.

Wow! What prompted you to tackle this subject?

I wrote this in the wake of my aunt’s suicide, in large part to find a way to link my own experiences with crippling loneliness as a college Freshman with the grief I felt in the wake of her unexpected death. I had, after that grim Freshman year, run into Henry Darger for the first time in Olivia Laing’s excellent book The Lonely City, a half-memoir-half-research piece that spoke to 19-year-old me in a way that nothing else could at the time. I saw in Darger’s isolation both a tie to my own experience and a selfish sense of confusion that a man so utterly alone died of old age, while two of my family members had found themselves incapable of living so long. I had a lot that I needed to come to terms with, and I also had a Sophomore playwriting class that required me to write a lengthy one act that I had no other ideas for. Thanks to my professor, Jim Grimsley, for allowing me to write this so soon after the incident occurred; I would probably have suggested to myself that I shouldn’t.

What, exactly, got you into playwrighting?

From procrastinating on studying for high school midterms: I wrote my first one act in a single weekend out of a refusal to do math.

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

Voice is so entirely the point of playwriting that I can’t imagine writing a play and considering it complete without having had multiple readings. I discovered so many things about this play from its readings at Emory and the Tennessee Williams Fest, many of them aspects of the middle-aged characters that I, as a young writer, would not have noticed without the contributions of the older actors in those roles. Understanding the shape and energy of a play is impossible without readings.

And what are you hoping to gain from this Bare Essentials experience in particular?

A sense of how the play behaves for another set of eyes and ears—where does it move and drag, what shines and what doesn’t. I’m also so excited to get to work with the Essential Theatre on this, and to have a chance to have work produced in Atlanta’s professional sphere for the first time!

Well thank you – and congratulations! We are definitely looking forward to your reading on Tuesday. Outside of Tuesday’s reading, where else can interested audience find your work?

In New York city at the United Solo Festival! Also hopefully in Atlanta in the coming year or so.

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Henry Darger Takes a Walk will be read at the West End Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, August 6, at 7:30pm. Directed by Natalie Fox. Readers: Genevieve Leopold, Emih Abrahamson, Olivia Dawson, Brad Brooks, Brandon Deen, Joey Davila, Brieanna Haberling.

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. This series is curated by Essential’s founding Artistic Director, Peter Hardy.

Leviticus Jelks III (left) wrote the first Bare Essentials reading in this summer’s Festival series, Day of Saturn. Read on to learn a little more about Leviticus and the play we’ll be seeing this Saturday afternoon!

Hi Leviticus, tell us a little about yourself!

I was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, where I pursued the study of playwriting at the Horizon Theatre and The Alliance Theatre. In 2014, I was accepted as a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. I am the proud co-recipient of the 2016 KCACTF Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, for my play A Is For Apron. Day of Saturn was awarded as a Finalist for the 2018 Eugene O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference, the 2018 Woodward/Newman Drama Award and the 2019 Kitchen Dog Theatre Award. I am the co-recipient of the 2018 Play LA Humanitas Playwriting Award. I take my inspirations from August Wilson, James Baldwin and Donald Glover.

What is this play about? What made you want to write it?

Day of Saturn tells the story of the complicated relationship between ex-stuntman Achilles Jones and his gay son, Icarus. Through journal entries, astronomical occurrences and 90s hip hop legends, the play explores the torments of Black masculinity, the discovery of sexual identity and the fragile link between generations.

This play is essentially a portrait of the Black American male, but in high resolution. You can see the cracks in the paint, the flaws, the mistakes, but stepping back you don’t lose the strength and the fragility of the entire art piece. I wanted to write my coming out story with the character of Icarus. However, not from my perspective, but rather that of my father, or in the play’s case, Achilles. Despite all the questions and thoughts I had running through my mind, I couldn’t help but to be curious about the questions and thoughts running through his. This play also drew inspiration from The Greek myth of Icarus, a boy with wings made by his own father, who flew too close to the Sun and started to fall. I feel that this is often the story of all Black men in America, and I wanted to ask the question of: what happens after we start falling?

How did you get into playwriting?

I was an English major at Clayton State University, when I decided to take a course in Playwriting, taught by Philip Depoy. It was through his teachings that I wrote my first play, The Witch’s Fee, which had been staged the same year. Ever since seeing my words and ideas acted out in front of an audience, I have grown a passion and a love for writing for the theatre.

What are your thoughts about Saturday’s reading?

I love staged readings because there is no pressure of a full production. Sitting in the dark is nothing but me, my audience and my words being brilliantly read by talented actors. With that I have the opportunity to just hear my words and hear how they flow and reach an audience. I can tell what’s funny, what’s sad, what’s dramatic, even what sounds ridiculous. However, it is all important for me, the playwright, to take note of when I later make revisions and breathe new life into my play.

I’m looking forward to interacting with a new director and new actors who will bring their own interpretations to the script, which will help me see it from a new perspective. it will also be beneficial to gauge a new audience and see how they react to the story being told for them. I hope to gain a deeper knowledge of the material and the characters, seeing as how they are so personal to me and influenced by my own life. So far, this whole experience has been wonderful! I look forward to seeing this play go up in my home city.

Where else can we find your work?

I have a reading for Play LA, which is a subset of Humanitas, taking place in Los Angeles during the month of September. It is for a new sci-fi racial drama piece I have spent the past year working on, called HYDRA.

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Day of Saturn will be read at the West End Performing Arts Center on Saturday, August 3, at 2pm. Directed by Najah Ali. Readers: Kerwin Thompson (Achilles), Anthony Nash (Icarus), and Markis Gallashaw (Odysseus).

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. This series is curated by Essential’s founding Artistic Director, Peter Hardy.