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#6 in our accompanying 20 DAYS OF ESSENTIAL PLAYWRIGHTS is WEST OF EDEN by Letitia Sweitzer, originally produced as part of the 2008 Essential Theatre Festival.

This play grew from a one-act that won the 2005 Georgia Theatre Conference’s One-Act Competition, into the full-length work produced by Essential in 2008. In the interim, Essential hosted a couple of private readings of different versions of the play and was considering producing a public staged reading, but by the time of the second private reading,

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#7 in our accompanying 20 DAYS OF ESSENTIAL PLAYWRIGHTS is IMAGES IN SMOKE by Karla Jennings, originally produced as part of the 2000 Essential Theatre Festival. Named one of the year’s best productions by Creative Loafing, IMAGES IN SMOKE was the first play by Jennings that Essential produced. It took place before the Playwriting Competition had been created, but in 2014 she did win the Playwriting Award with another play, RAVENS AND SEAGULLS, which was produced in that summer’s festival.

“Essential’s faith in playwrights strengthens their faith in themselves,”

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#8 in our accompanying 20 DAYS OF ESSENTIAL PLAYWRIGHTS is THE OLD SHIP OF ZION, by Natalia Naman

We are proud to support Natalia and other playwrights across Georgia, and we hope you will consider supporting Essential so that we can continue to do so for years to come. Please consider making a donation to our power2give campaign today:
https://www2.power2give.org/campaigns/210
‪#‎power2give ‪#‎GeorgiaPlaywright ‪#‎EssentialArtist

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#9 in our accompanying 20 DAYS OF ESSENTIAL PLAYWRIGHTS:
Winner of the 2012 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, BAT-HAMLET was Jordan Pulliam’s first full-length work and went on to win the Metropolitan Atlanta Theatre Awards for Best Original Work. It’s been produced at least three more times since Essential premiered it, in Charleston, Louisville and Chicago.

Says Pulliam, “Seeing my play, Bat-Hamlet, produced by the Essential Theatre was one of the greatest thrills of my life. I’d hardly imagined any theatre anywhere could take the spectacle that was parading through my head and put it onto a stage for others to see,

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#10 in our accompanying 20 DAYS OF ESSENTIAL PLAYS series is A THOUSAND CIRCLETS, by Theroun Patterson. A THOUSAND CIRCLETS won the 2011 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, marking his move from acting to playwriting despite a prolific and successful acting career. As if to prove the wisdom of the move, the play went on to a second production at Detroit Repertory within a year.

Patterson has since become one of the most in-demand playwrights in Atlanta, again winning the Essential Theatre Playwriting Award in 2014 with THAT UGANDA PLAY and enjoying readings and productions of other works all over town,

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#11 in our accompanying 20 DAYS OF ESSENTIAL PLAYS series is SWIMMING WITH JELLYFISH, by Katie Grant Shalin.

Katie wrote and originally produced this play herself, also playing the lead in the initial production, at the school where she taught. We produced it the next summer, and our audiences loved it.

Katie has since passed away, in the fall of 2014. We are so thankful to have been able to bring Katie’s play to life for her and to have gotten to know this sweet,

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About the Project

Essential Theatre is the longest-running theatre dedicated exclusively to supporting the work of Georgia playwrights. Although we only produce plays during the festival, our year-round work continues to expand as we find new ways to give Georgia playwrights a voice. This fall, help us expand our boundaries and deepen our roots as we take the next steps to ensure that Georgia’s playwrights become recognized as significant new American playwrights, which is what they truly are.

What your donation will support:

Processing Playwriting Competition Submissions: We had another record-breaking year of submissions to our playwriting competition,

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#12 in our accompanying 20 DAYS OF ESSENTIAL PLAYS series is THE LOCAL. Curated by Ellen McQueen and produced by Essential in 2012, was actually comprised of dozens of short plays, songs, poems and personal stories about the City of Atlanta. Writers and contributors included Margaret Baldwin, Matthew Myers, Carlton Molette, Barbara Molette, Karla Jennings, Sarah Satola, Topher Payne, Peter Hardy, Stephanie Schrag, Chris Buechner, Jessica Bodiford, Ellen McQueen, vynnie Meli, Oliver Turner, Ashley McQueen, Dre Camacho, John Dull, Julia Dahlia, Robin Bloodworth,

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Jean Sterrett won the 2007 Playwriting Award with her play FIX ME SO I CAN STAND, a powerful fact-inspired story about injustice to African Americans in the South. One of the characters, a young lawyer, was based on a real man from Clayton County, now a judge. He came to see the play on his own — and then returned with friends and family in tow!
An Atlanta resident at the time the play was written, Jean originally hails from Australia. After Essential’s production of this play, she was named Creative Loafing’s Critics Pick for Best Local Playwright. “Sterrett showed such a vivid sense of place that Atlanta’s larger playhouses should give her work a look.” -Creative Loafing

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With the latest Star Wars having opened yesterday, an appropriate pick for #13 in our accompanying 20 DAYS OF ESSENTIAL PLAYS series is SALLY AND GLEN AT THE PALACE.

Penned by artistic director Peter Hardy, SALLY AND GLEN AT THE PALACE premiered as part of the 2010 Essential Theatre Play Festival, where it ended up on “Best of the Year” lists for both The Sunday Paper and Atlanta Theater Buzz, while Hardy was Creative Loafing’s Critic’s Pick for Best Atlanta Playwright.

Since that time,

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