20
Valetta Anderson

LEAVING LIMBO, which we premiered in 2006, was an excellent example of how you can learn about a script from your audiences. Night after night, people would leave to go to the bathroom during one particularly long scene, which told us we were losing their attention with that scene. Producing new plays is an absolutely vital part of the play development process: you can’t predict audience reactions in a vacuum!

“Without that Essential production, LEAVING LIMBO would be as unrealized a a pre-digital-era photograph lnguishing on a developed but not-printed roll of film.”

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21
Fleck, Wurl, McQueen & Co

“no restrictions as to style, length or subject matter” you say?
As a matter of fact, yes: although traditionally our Award winners have been full-length plays (running an hour or more in performance), in 2007 Essential produced NIGHT TRAVELS. This was the first time that we “created” a show, by taking short works by several authors and putting them together to form a whole, including one section that was created in an ensemble effort by the director and the cast.

Artistic Director Peter Hardy said, “I first got the idea to put these pieces (all of them about women’s dreams) together into one evening around 1994.

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22
Topher Payne

You know him for his recent prolific writings: the Lakebottoms (Proper and Prime), Angry Fags, Swell Party and more, to include his 2012 Essential premiere, Evelyn in Purgatory.

Or maybe you know him because you’ve seen him onstage, or because of the column he’s written for years.

Regardless of HOW you know him, it’s likely that, in some capacity, you DO know him. So for today’s post, here’s a “baby picture” of one of Atlanta’s favorite playwrights and personalities, Topher Payne, who has appeared on Essential’s stage many times over the years but was first cast in our 2001 production of Lauren Gunderson’s PARTS THEY CALL DEEP.

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23
Bill Gibson

Bill’s play, WARTS, was the winner of the 2002 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award.

WARTS was set in 1950s Philadelphia (the boyhood home of writer Bill Gibson), and it established the rule that, while only Georgia resident playwrights could be submitted to Essential’s contest, the plays themselves did not have to be set in Georgia, or even in the south.

DID YOU KNOW?
2002 was the first year we specifically articulated our mission of supporting Georgia playwrights. Since the first Essential Play Festival in 1999, however, we have presented 23 new works by Georgia playwrights,

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24
Theroun Patterson

Just this past summer, Theroun’s THAT UGANDA PLAY was co-winner of the Essential Theatre Playwriting Award and was produced in our Festival. Inspired by an interview between Rachel Maddow and David Bahati, the Ugandan Parliament member who proposed the notorious Anti-Gay bill that year in Uganda, Theround began writing this play in 2010 and developed it with Working Title Playwrights and Academy Theatre over the next couple of years. THAT UGANDA PLAY became newly relevant this year with the passing of a version of the bill whose proposal inspired the play.

We are proud to have supported Theroun’s work.

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25
Lauren Gunderson

Lauren was our first award winner in 2001 with PARTS THEY CALL DEEP. She won again in 2004 for BACKGROUND, and she is currently based out of California and boasts a very successful playwriting career.

“The Essential Theatre has been fundamentally important for my career. When I was very young and unsure of how to sustain my work in theatre, they gave me strength. I speak from experience when I say that I will always credit them with my early success and confidence.”

PARTS THEY CALL DEEP wasn’t “submitted”

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It’s a great day for a movie, so here’s your post for today:

26
Peter Hardy, founding artistic director and author of several plays, to include SALLY AND GLEN AT THE PALACE, which we produced in 2010.

“Peter Hardy’s SALLY AND GLEN AT THE PALACE is a lovely valentine to the movies, a trivia buff’s dream and a sweet coming-of-age story about friendships made in unlikely places.”

Creative Loafing Critic’s Pick for 2010 Best Local Playwright, Peter created the characters of Sally and Glen in the late 1990s, but they continue to live on in his head,

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27
Katie Grant Shalin, author of SWIMMING WITH JELLYFISH,
produced by Essential in 2013

Katie produced this play herself, with her playing the lead, in a production at the school where she taught. We produced it the next summer, and our audiences loved it.

Sadly, Katie passed away earlier this year from brain cancer. She received her diagnosis just as rehearsals were beginning for our production of JELLYFISH. This Thanksgiving, we are thankful for all the great playwrights whose work we’ve had the pleasure of producing, and for all that are yet to come,

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28
Matthew Myers

Winner of the 2013 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award with his play, STRAY DOGS

Matt went to school for performance and worked primarily as an actor his first few years in Atlanta, but now he is writing about as much as he is performing. He has had plays produced by Dad’s Garage, the Collective Project, the Academy Theatre and the Essential Theatre, among others.

We are proud to have supported Matt’s work. Won’t you support ours? 28 days left to give: https://www.power2give.org/go/p/8445

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29
Vynnie Meli

Vynnie won the 2009 Playwriting Award Contest with her play, JIM CROW AND THE RHYTHM DARLINGS. After the opening night, we all agreed to cut what had been the final scene of the show, feeling that the next-to-last scene would make for a more powerful ending. Apparently audiences agreed: the play went on to be produced again that winter in Stone Mountain and won Best Original Work from the Metropolitan Atlanta Theatre Awards.

We are proud to have supported Vynnie’s work. Won’t you support ours? 29 days to go: https://www.power2give.org/go/p/8445

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