40 Days of Essential Playwrights kicks off TODAY with Topher Payne!

Today, to spice up the final 40 days of our fall power2give campaign, we’re kicking off a new series of Facebook and website posts:

“40 Days of Essential Playwrights”

Join us every morning at 10am for our next post celebrating a fun fact about one of the fantastic playwrights whose work we have produced over the past — can you believe it? — 27 years!

To kick off the countdown:

40

Prolific playwright and Atlanta personality, Topher Payne!

Among his many other, wildly popular accomplishments, Topher acted in our first prize winning play (Lauren Gunderson’s PARTS THEY CALL DEEP) and has gone on to appear in four other Essential productions.

Continue reading →

FINAL WEEK!

HAPPENING NOW: Our fall power2give fundraising campaign!

Help give Georgia playwrights a voice by donating today! Every donation is matched dollar-for-dollar by funds from the City of Atlanta, so your gift goes twice as far! Click here to find out more and hear our Artistic Director, Peter Hardy, share his thoughts about giving Georgia playwrights a voice and tell you more about the work your donation will support.

 

Continue reading →

“Learning to Fly” Takes Flight on the anniversary of 9/11

by Jennifer Kimball

Today is September 11. Last night, the President announced that we “will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat” of ISIS. This weekend, Amber Bradshaw and Thom Stanley, whose work you recently saw on Essential’s stage in this summer’s World Premiere production of That Uganda Play, are at the 9th Micro-Festival of Unfinished Puppetry in Quebec, Canada, workshopping and presenting a full one-act length version of their collaboratively developed Learning to Fly,  which premiered this past spring as a 12 minute short in XPT at the Center for Puppetry Arts.

Continue reading →

We’ve been nominated for the Suzis!

We’re proud to announce that, in our first year of participating in the Suzi Bass Awards, Essential Theatre has its first nomination: Karla Jennings’ Ravens & Seagulls for Best World Premiere Production! Congrats and thanks to director David Crowe, dramaturg Michael Evenden, and our incredible cast: Sam Traquina, Gina Rickicki, Teresa DeBerry, Jill Perry, Suzanne Roush, Patti French and Sarah Wallis!

And here’s something else that’s cool: Of the eleven plays up for the Suzi’s Gene-Gabriel Moore Playwriting Award, three of them were produced by the Essential Theatre — more than any other company! To wit: That Uganda Play by Theroun Patterson,

Continue reading →