Thursday night’s Bare Essentials Play Reading is Smoked, written by Thomas Brazzle. Read on to learn a little more about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing on Thursday!

Thomas Brazzle is an actor, writer and director based in Georgia. After spending time studying puppetry and performance abroad in London and Barcelona, Thomas returned to the US to focus on creating new work and working in regional theatre. He has performed at The Guthrie in Minneapolis, Shakespeare and Company (Lenox, MA), Connecticut Rep, The Alley Theatre (Houston, TX), TheatreSquared (Fayetteville, AR) and many other regional theaters. He now writes and directs films with his production company Whet Ink Productions.

Continue reading →

Our first online play reading ever will be happening on Tuesday night! Read on here to learn a little about our playwright and the play we’ll be seeing on Tuesday:

Hannah Manikowski is a Georgia-born, nationally recognized new play artist who holds a BFA in Directing from the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University. Hannah loves women in both the lesbian sense and the feminist sense, and she especially loves writing plays by, for, and about them. She is a 2020 O’Neill finalist and the winner of the 2018 – 2019 Judith Barlow Prize. Additionally,

Continue reading →

Recommended by Education Associate Emily McClain:

The Georgia Department of Education has a fantastic collection of Fine Arts resources for all content areas. It’s free and available to teachers and I wanted to share with my teacher-network. We are resilient and creative and endlessly flexible. We will continue to share our love of art and music and theatre and dance with our students in this new medium!

Recommended in a recent email newsletter from the office of Essential’s Congressman, John Lewis:

Educational Tools for Distance Learning: While many schools have temporarily closed their doors, tools are available to assist parents with educating their children from home.

Continue reading →

Essential Theatre announces the winners of the 2020 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jennifer Kimball, Managing Director
[email protected]

2020 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award Winners press kit

February 2020 – Essential Theatre is proud to announce the winners of the 2020 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award: The Outrage Machine by Daniel Carter Brown and The Wishing Place by Beverly Trader Austin. The Outrage Machine and The Wishing Place will each receive a full production in the 2020 Essential Theatre Festival this summer as well as a cash prize.

Continue reading →

Thanks to EVERYONE who made a donation to our 2020 Festival power2give campaign. Together, we raised over $8,000 to support the 2020 Essential Theatre Play Festival!

Deepest thanks, from everyone at Essential, and we’ll see you at the theater!

Continue reading →

Read on to find out about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing Monday night!

Tell us a little about yourself, personally and professionally.

I am an actor, playwright, and director who came to Atlanta from Chicago a decade ago. I’ve had two full-length plays produced in Atlanta: Honor The System at Out of Box Theatre, and Steal My Heart with New Origins Theatre Company. I’ve also had numerous short plays produced by Onion Man Productions and others, and I wrote, produced, and directed four sketch comedy shows under my former company Give Us Brains! I also write and perform political sketch comedy for the weekly podcast Barely Audible Whisper.

Continue reading →

Donate through power2give!

December 8 through January 22

For the first time in several years, we are THRILLED to announce that Essential Theatre has been awarded a power2give campaign from the City of Atlanta in support of the 2020 Essential Theatre Play Festival!
Our campaign is LIVE December 8 through January 22!

As a matching program, power2give is a gift to donors and Essential alike: for every dollar we raise through power2give, the City of Atlanta will contribute matching funds – up to $20,000!

If you think supporting Georgia’s writers and artists is important, if you enjoy seeing great new theatre by playwrights from your community, if you believe that Georgia’s playwrights are great 

Continue reading →

Join us at the West End Performing Arts Center for our next Bare Essentials Play Reading:

THE OUTRAGE MACHINE
Written by Daniel Carter Brown
Directed by Peter Hardy

“Is something that was supposed to bring us all together only driving us further apart?”

The Outrage Machine is a semi-comedic exploration of internet journalism, social media, and the culture of outrage. Twenty-something Rina Marsh gets a job writing headlines for The Centurion, an upstart website aiming to stand out for its integrity and responsibility. Rina finds that pushing people’s anger buttons results in more views,

Continue reading →

Wednesday night’s Bare Essentials reading is The Odds Against Death, co-written by John D. Babcock III (Independent, 2017) and Ted Westby. Read on to find out a little more about the pair, and about the play we’ll be seeing on Wednesday!

• Ted Westby

The writers:

John D. Babcock III is a writer for Agatha’s – A Taste of Mystery and the Mystery Café of Indianapolis. He is also a writer/performer with Sketchworks Comedy. John was cast in, and wrote additional scenes for,

Continue reading →

Monday night’s Bare Essentials reading is Waiting for Big Stuff, written by Allan Dodson. Read on to learn a little more about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing Monday night!

Allan Dodson is a playwright, actor, and director that’s been hanging around Atlanta theater for longer than he’d like to admit. He had a delightful 15 years as a high school theater director and was fortunate enough to study acting under the late William Esper, protege to Sanford Meisner. He’s found himself accidentally specializing in shorter plays, and he’s been produced in various venues around town with a one-act,

Continue reading →