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#16 in our accompanying 20 DAYS OF ESSENTIAL PLAYS series is WARTS, by Bill Gibson, won the 2002 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award and was produced as part of the 2002 Festival.

Since that time, Bill has had about 20 plays produced in Atlanta, New York and elsewhere. You’ve also seen his work read as part of the Bare Essentials the past two years, CHRIST, AMERICA in the summer of 2014 as well as our most recent Bare Essentials last month: THE CISCO KID WAS MY MOTHER’S BOYFRIEND.

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#17 – JIM CROW AND THE RHYTHM DARLINGS, by Vynnie Meli, was the winner of the 2009 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, and its production in the 2009 Essential Theatre Festival was awarded Best Original Work from the Metropolitan Atlanta Theatre Awards.

Aside from her work with Essential, Meli is also quite successful in the world of musical theatre: you can read more about that from our Artistic Director, Peter Hardy, here: https://essentialtheatre.com/we-will-rock-you/

We’re proud to have helped to bring RHYTHM DARLINGS to life, and we hope YOU will consider supporting US:
18 days left to see your donation matched through our power2give campaign: https://www2.power2give.org/campaigns/210

‪#‎power2give ‪#‎GeorgiaPlaywright ‪#‎EssentialArtist

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#18 – LEAVING LIMBO, by Valetta Anderson, was a co-winner of the 2006 Essential Playwriting Award and was produced as part of the 2006 Essential Theatre Festival. Anderson’s full productions include Hallelujah Street Blues at Horizon Theatre, Leaving Limbo with Essential Theatre, Today (AT&T: Onstage Award) and She’ll Find Her Way Home with Jomandi Productions, Kuntu Repertory Theatre, and Fisk University.

“The Essential Theatre was the essential ingredient in furthering my career as a playwright and expanding my voice into film by providing the one thing that is missing from most new play development processes, namely a full production,”

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#19 in our 20 DAYS OF ESSENTIAL PLAYS is EVELYN IN PURGATORY, by today’s birthday boy, Topher Payne. Happy Birthday, Topher!

EVELYN IN PURGATORY was the winner of the 2012 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, and it premiered as part of our 2012 Essential Theatre Play Festival.

In recent months-to-years, Topher has become a tremendously celebrated and produced Georgia playwright, having been produced from Alaska to Florida and earned his first off-Broadway production in New York this year as well. Throughout his success, he has been a passionate and steadfast advocate for the Atlanta theatre community as an excellent home for new plays and playwrights,

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Happy holidays everyone!
Last year during our fall power2give campaign, we brought you 40 DAYS OF ESSENTIAL PLAYWRIGHTS, which many of you said you enjoyed.
Well TODAY we are pleased to kick off 20 DAYS OF ESSENTIAL PLAYS for your entertainment during this holiday season (and the duration of our power2give campaign).

#20 in our 20 DAYS OF ESSENTIAL PLAYS today is…QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT, by Gabriel Jason Dean!!

Winner of the 2010 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT premiered as part of the 2010 Essential Theatre Play Festival.

“Peter Hardy and the Essential Theatre were an invaluable help to me,”

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Click here to read more, or sign up for our mailing list at the bottom of the page to receive our newsletter directly!

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Commissioned by Stage Door Players in Dunwoody, GA, written by Topher Payne, directed by Shannon Eubanks (Director, Lillian Likes It, 2015 Essential Theatre Festival) and featuring the dynamic acting talents of Bryan Brendle, Amanda Cucher, Shelly McCook, Doyle Reynolds, Gina Rickicki, Emily Sams and Ben Silver, Let Nothing You Dismay is enjoying a very successful first run and is sure to become a holiday tradition in years to come.

“I’m a longtime fan of the work done at Stage Door Players and the relationship Robert Egizio has built with their patrons during his tenure,”

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We most recently interviewed tonight’s playwright, Bill Gibson, back in 2014 leading up to our reading of his play Christ, America. Click here to read the full interview. His latest work, The Cisco Kid Was My Mother’s Boyfriend, is our reading at tonight’s Bare Essentials. Here’s what Bill had to say about this play:

What was your inspiration for Cisco Kid?
My late wife of 51 years: It is about her father and grandmother.

How long have you been working on this script?
7-8 years.

What has the development process looked like,

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Click here to learn more about the show

Click here to read an interview with Topher about the show

and click here to enter the raffle today!

Thanks to a generous donation from our friends at Stage Door Players, Essential Theatre is pleased to be able to offer our friends and supporters a chance to win tickets to the World Premiere Production of Atlanta playwright Topher Payne’s new holiday special, Let Nothing You Dismay.

Opening December 4 and running through December 20,

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-from Artistic Director Peter Hardy

Maya Angelou said “We find our path by walking it,” and that’s part of what’s happened to me with the Essential Theatre over the past seventeen years.  I came to Atlanta mostly wanting to work as a playwright and a director.  In 1999, when we started producing the annual Essential Theatre Festival, I decided that each Festival would feature at least one production of a new play by a Georgia writer. Frankly, this was something of a calculated choice — I figured that doing locally-written plays would make us stand out and be a good way for us to get support. 

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