Registration is now open for Essential Theatre’s fall Intro to Playwriting course through the West End Performing Arts Center! This fall’s course will be all online, All Ages, and meet once a week on Tuesdays at 4:00 starting September 14.

The course will be led by Amina McIntyre, who has been a guest playwright for several of our previous courses and co-taught this summer’s classes with Emily McClain.

A six week introduction to the art and form of playwriting, led by acclaimed Atlanta playwright Amina McIntyre and featuring past Essential Theatre Playwriting Award Winners as special guests! 

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ATLANTA – July 2021

Essential Theatre, Inc has been awarded two grants by Georgia Council for the Arts (GCA), a division of the Georgia Department of Economic Development, as part of GCA’s initial disbursement of grants for fiscal year 2022. A total of 218 organizations were awarded 266 grants that provide more than $2 million in funding to arts organizations throughout the state. The Bridge Grant provided funding for operating support to 135 organizations, the Project Grant will help fund 54 arts projects, and the Arts Education Program Grant was awarded to 77 organizations. Additional grants for Vibrant Communities and Cultural Facilities programs will be awarded in the Fall of 2021.

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Come celebrate with us!

Essential Theatre Is Back! Join Us On August 28 For The Return Of Our Celebration Of Georgia Playwrights!

Meet The Newest Additions To The Essential Theatre Legacy, Erin Considine And Anthony Lamarr White, And Celebrate Essential’s – And Georgia’s – Rich Theatre Tradition And The Community In Which Our Playwrights Grow And Thrive.

At our Celebration of Georgia Playwrights Event, you’ll get to:

Hang out. With people. In person – still feels so good, right? And not just any people – people who, like you,

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Anthony Lamarr White is co-winner of the 2021 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, along with Erin Considine. Read on to learn a little more about Anthony and the play we’ll be premiereing this fall!

Anthony Lamarr White is a playwright, novelist, and screenwriter from Crawford, GA. At age nine, a typewriter he received for Christmas and his passion for Bruce Lee films led him to write his first short screenplay, Two Against the Mob. Since then, his work has included novels, screenplays, and two full-length plays, Calming the Man and The Long Goodbye.

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Erin Considine is co-winner of the 2021 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, along with Anthony Lamarr White. Read on to learn a little more about Erin and the play we’ll be premiereing this fall!

Erin K. Considine is an emerging Southern Playwright from the Atlanta Area. Her first full-length play, Pete & Wendy, was included in 2016’s Bare Essentials Play Reading Series. This collaboration led to the development of Riding Bicycles in the Rain (2017 Ethel Woolson Lab & 2018 Playwrights Voiced Festival),and Flaming Out (2018 First Light Reading Series). Her scripts Twenty-Two (2020 Dramaworkshop at Palmbeach Dramaworks,

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We’re delighted and proud to announce the two co-winners of the 2021 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award! They are: CALMING THE MAN by Anthony Lamarr White and RAISING THE DEAD by Erin Considine. Congratulations to the winners! They will each receive a cash prize of $750 and their plays will receive full productions in the 2021 Essential Theatre Play Festival, happening live in person this November at our home since 2014, the West End Performing Arts Center!

We can honestly say that this was the most difficult choice we’ve had to make in the contest’s 21-year history, because of the high quality of this year’s submissions.

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The Essential Theatre’s General Auditions will be via video submission only for 2021. Please submit your video audition (along with resume and headshot) to [email protected] by Thursday July 1, 2021. Auditions should consist of two contrasting monologues with a total length of no more than four minutes.

Please use subject line: [YOUR NAME] GENERAL AUDITION.

PLEASE NOTE:  This year, our two full productions (Anthony Lamarr White’s CALMING THE MAN and Erin Considine’s RAISING THE DEAD) will require a total of six actors: four African-American men and two women of any ethnicity in the 40-60 year old age range.

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This Saturday, April 10, we’re wrapping up our first 10 Minute Playwriting Bootcamp with a virtual showcase of participant’s work read by professional actors.

Our Bootcamp class features new and emerging playwrights that all have an interest in continuing to write for theatre, and our acting ensemble features new and established performers reading their words. The collection of plays is diverse and entertaining, showcasing new voices and perspectives that we know you will enjoy! 

Afternoon Showcase

Grown Folks Business by Zeena Regis
Night of Suspicion by Sherry Jackson
Princesses by Katherine Brokaw
And the Walls Come Tumbling Down…Eventually by Miriam Kulick
Closure by Shashone Lambert Short
You Bet Your Life by Rick Perera
Pink Casket by Virginia Kirby

RSVP for the Afternoon Session

Evening Showcase

Museum Majicc 

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The deadline for the 2022 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award competition is April 23, 2021.

Now in its 23rd year, this is the only contest exclusively dedicated to the work of Georgia playwrights. The winning play will receive both a full production and a $750 cash prize. Playwrights must be current Georgia residents, and the plays must be previously unproduced. There are no restrictions as to style, length or subject matter.

Email your script to [email protected] or submit it here today:

Submit a play

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Monday night’s Bare Essentials Play Reading is Dead Gay Body, written by Abraham Johnson. Read on to learn a little more about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing Monday night!

Abraham Johnson (all pronouns) is an Atlanta-based playwright who writes Big Messy Queer plays centering around audience communion. Abe has been named a two-time Lambda Literary Playwriting Fellow, a resident artist at the Sundress Academy, and a finalist for the 2020 National Young Playwrights Residency. In 2021 Abe will be a 4x finalist for the Greenhouse Residency at SPACE on Ryder Farms, as well as a playwriting scholar at the Suwanee Writers’ Conference.

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