Meet the Playwright: Natalia Naman

Natalia Naman is a playwright writing and teaching in her hometown of Columbus, GA. Her plays include The Old Ship of Zion, Lawnpeople, and Crossing Over. Her work has been produced at Princeton University, The Cherry Lane Theatre, HERE Arts Center, and Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. She is a Cherry Lane Mentor Project Finalist, a three time nominee for the Wendy Wasserstein Prize, and a Lark Play Development Center alumna. She graduated from Princeton University with a BA in English and NYU Tisch with an MFA in Dramatic Writing.

Earlier this year we spoke with Natalia and got to learn a little bit more about her and The Old Ship of Zion, 

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June 2015 Featured Sponsor: Our West End Newsletter

Recently, we met Brent Owen, active member of the West End Neighborhood Association and dedicated member of the all-volunteer team that publishes the monthly OWEN newsletter. As has so often been the case since we moved to West End last summer, Brent immediately welcomed us with enthusiasm, recommending local restaurants and businesses we should make sure to visit this summer (you can see several of his recommendations as well as ours on the Find Us! page on our website) and offering to showcase our festival in his newsletter.

Click here to read this month’s OWEN,

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Reflections on the life of a play

Essential’s artistic director, Peter Hardy, doesn’t just work hard to give Georgia playwrights a voice. He’s also a playwright himself. A play of his is opening this weekend, in fact: read on as he shares some reflections on SALLY AND GLEN’s journey to the present day:

SALLY AND GLEN AT THE PALACE is a very special play for me, a deeply personal one, and it took a long time to grow up. When I was in college at UNC in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I worked at a movie theater from 1972-1976, and years later (sometime in the early-mid 1990s) I was walking on the beach and thinking back to my college years,

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Featured Sponsor: Fulton County Arts Council

 

As we are gearing up for this summer’s festival, it seems like an appropriate time to feature long-time Essential sponsor and supporter, the Fulton County Arts Council.

The Fulton County Arts Council grant is actually the first grant that Essential ever applied for – and the first grant we ever received, back in 2005. Since that time, Fulton County has been a steadfast supporter of Essential’s work – and 2015 is the second summer in a row that we’ve partnered with a Fulton County Performing Arts Center to produce the festival, in addition to receiving a grant from the FCAC.

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Opportunities for Young Playwrights

You already know about our annual Playwriting Competition, open to all ages as long as you’re a resident of Georgia. But did you know that there are playwriting opportunities across Atlanta geared to students ages 8 through out of school?

Check out some of the opportunities we’ve found:

Playwriting Camp at Georgia Tech with Suehyla El-Attar

Registration is still open for the Georgia Tech Office of the Arts Playwriting Camp,  June 1-12. For students age 8-14, the play created in this camp will be performed at the end of Drama Camp on July 2.

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Multiple premieres for Daryl Fazio

We’ve been updating you for months now on the world premiere production of Daryl’s Split in Three, which closed last weekend at Florida Rep, but now Daryl is going international! Actors Repertory Theatre Luxembourg is producing the European Premiere of her play, Greyhounds, June 2-7.

This is tremendously exciting news, and we’re not the only ones who think so. Here is just some of what Actors Rep has to say about Daryl and their upcoming production:

So who is Daryl Fazio?
She is an amazing playwright, the author of the wonderful play ‘Greyhounds’,

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Happy Mother’s Day!

Essential Theatre owes a lot to one very special mother: Martha Nell Hardy, the mother of our founder and artistic director, Peter Hardy. Though she passed away in 2005, she still has a tremendous presence. For those of you who never met Martha Nell, here are some of Peter’s reflections on her life and her influence on Peter and Essential:

I was blessed to have remarkable people for my parents – Bill and Martha Nell Hardy. Two great people of theatre , winners of numerous awards and honors.  I’ll be lucky to achieve a quarter of what they did. 

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