Congratulations to Femmaeve MacQueen, Maya Lavender, Tomi Fawehinmi, Brazil Remani, Melissa Simmons, Nathan Jerpe, and Victoria Nation, the 2026 Southern Fried Bake-Off Playwrights!

Don’t miss out on this fun and creative way to jumpstart your new year. Watch creativity unfold! Witness the magic firsthand as playwrights, actors, and crew collaborate for an exhilarating 24 hours to create brand-new plays inspired by a Bake-Off theme and a list of “ingredients.”

Tickets to the 7pm public performance on January 3 are NOW available at EssentialTheatre.Tix.com.

*proudly brought to you by Essential Theatre and 7Stages

About the Playwrights:

Femmaeve MacQueen is an Atlanta-based actress and writer dedicated to audacious transgender visibility on stage and screen.

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The Southern Fried Bake-Off is back January 2 and 3, 2026! Start your year off right by having fun with folks from across our community, doing what we do best: making theater together.

Essential Theatre’s Southern Fried Bake-Off 24 hour play festival returns to 7Stages to kick off 2026 with everything we love most and wish to infuse into the new year: creativity, community, joy, challenge, collaboration, affirmation, support. What do you want to surround yourself with as you usher in the new year? Whether you’re a playwright, a performer, a director, or an audience member,

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For over 25 years, Essential Theatre has been bringing new work by Georgia playwrights to the stage. Your contribution today will help this work continue into the new year. Each donation helps produce plays written by local playwrights, offering them a chance to shine. With your support, we can continue to showcase their work, inspiring audiences both near and far.

Your gift funds new productions, supports local playwrights to gain national recognition, and engages the community in meaningful ways.

Join us in celebrating Georgia voices—your support makes it possible! Donate today to support the Essential Tradition and give Georgia playwrights a voice.

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Congratulations to our Education Associate and playwright Amina S. McIntyre for winning the Gene Gabriel Moore Award at the 2025 Suzi Bass Awards for her play, How to Make a Home!

Produced by Out of Hand this past spring, with an encore performance presented during the 2025 Essential Theatre Festival, How to Make a Home was nominated for a grand total of 4 Suzi Bass awards (Outstanding World Premiere Production, Principal Performer – Play, Outstanding Social Justice Production, and the Gene Gabriel Moore Award).

“To all the nominees,” said Amina the next day,

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This Thursday, Essential Theatre is presenting a one-night-only performance of Day by Emma Yarbrough. Read on to find out more about Emma and the show!

Emma Yarbrough is a storyteller, immersive theater-maker and clown from Eufaula, Alabama. A passionate advocate for arts education and community-building, Emma currently serves as the Senior Associate Director for Emory Arts at Emory University, where she earned a degree in Theater Studies. Emma trained in physical theater and clowning at the Accademia dell’Arte in Arezzo, Italy. As a devised theater-maker, Emma has worked with Out of Hand Theater, the Object Group,

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Tonight, Essential Theatre presents a one-night-only performance of I’m Not Supposed to Talk About This by Lee Nowell. Read on to find out more about the playwright and performer!

Lee Nowell is a professional playwright, director, and actress. The productions she has directed have garnered critical acclaim, including being named one of the Top Ten Productions of the Year by the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION. Her plays have been presented by Actor’s Express (ALBATROSS; PAPER HOUSE; OBSESSION), Georgia Public Broadcasting (BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT: THE TROY DAVIS PROJECT), Horizon Theatre (BLUE ANGELS WEEKEND), 7Stages (TRUE NORTH), Ex Somnium (HOW TO SURVIVE BEING HUMAN),

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Tuesday’s Bare Essentials Play Reading is The Interim by Caroline Donica. Read on to learn a little more about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing on Tuesday!

Caroline Donica is a producer, director, writer, and actor, whose work explores themes of identity, longing, and belonging with emotional precision and playful irreverence. A transnational Korean American adoptee, Caroline draws from her own experiences to tell stories that center overlooked perspectives. Her work spans genres but always returns to the human heart. Caroline is the CEO of Open Seat Productions, a film production company dedicated to empowering artists through craft,

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Tuesday’s Bare Essentials Play Reading is Snowblind by Laura King. Read on to learn a little more about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing on Tuesday!

Laura King is a playwright and dramaturg. She holds an MFA in playwriting from the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins University and a master’s in English from Northwestern University. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Synchronicity Theatre in Atlanta and recently was the dramaturg for their production of The Dark Lady by Jessica B. Hill. Her play Merritt Anne and the Mighty Oak is a 2025 AATE Distinguished Play Award winner.

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This Monday, Essential Theatre presents a one-night-only performance of Only An Actor by Tim McDonough. Read on to find out more about this Atlanta theater stalwart.

Tim McDonough has acted 100+ roles, winning awards up and down the East Coast since the 1980s. For 28 years he taught acting at Emory University; he served as Chair of Theater and Dance and as Artistic Director of Theater Emory. He has directed Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen, contemporary playwrights, and his own plays and adaptations of fiction and has written a book, Acting Narrative Speeches: The Actor as Storyteller.

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This Thursday, Essential Theatre presents a very special one-night-only encore performance of Kate Crabtree’s Someone Else’s Child, which swept this year’s Atlanta Fringe Festival, winning both the Audience Choice Award and the Homegrown Award. Read on to find out more about this intrepid playwright and the play you’ve got one more chance to see this Thursday!

Kate Crabtree is a multi-award-winning playwright with a mission to make theatre more fun and more accessible. Her most recent play, Someone Else’s Child, debuted at the Chain Theatre this April at the NYC Fringe, where it received an Audience Choice Award.

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