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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Tuesday’s Bare Essentials Play Reading is ladies of the by Hailey Sipes. Read on to learn a little more about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing on Tuesday!

ET: Hi Hailey! Welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself!

HS: Hi! My name is Hailey Sipes. I’m an Atlanta-based playwright originally from Dallas, Texas. I’m a graduate of Emory University where I received my degree in Playwriting and Classical Civilization. As such, I adore straddling both disciplines, be that in my own writing (my plays, “The Anamorphosis” and “gold dust woman” are both classical adaptation),

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Matt Hoffman is the 2025 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award winner with his second full-length play, A Very Special Hospital. Read on to learn what this two-time Essential Playwriting Award Winner has been up to since The Manuscript‘s premiere in 2023 and what he’s got in store for us this summer!

ET: Hi Matt! Congratulations on winning your second Essential Playwriting Award!

MH: Thank you! It feels wonderful and also too good to be true.

ET: Well we’re thrilled to have you back. What can you tell us about the play we’ll be seeing this summer?

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The Essential Theatre, Inc. is holding the “Sand and Serenity Raffle” to support the production of the 2025 Essential Theatre Play Festival. Tickets will be sold until 4pm on August 31, 2025. The drawing will take place at 5pm on August 31, 2025, at Seven Stages (1105 Euclid Avenue NE, Atlanta, GA 30307).

The Prize for the Winner is a three-night stay at a privately owned beach house on Daufuskie Island, S.C. (Value: $1,050). Restrictions apply (see below).

Get Raffle Tickets!

Terms and Conditions for the “Sand and Serenity Raffle”
1.

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A one of a kind summer soirée you won’t want to miss!

On July 24, Join the artists and board of the Essential Theatre for a very special summer soirée bursting with theatrical flavor and Southern sass to champion the bold voices of Georgia playwrights.

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Join us on July 24 and enjoy:

⭐️ Sips & snacks
⭐️ Pop-up performances
⭐️ A silent auction
⭐️ Fun and games!

All in support of Essential Theatre and new work from the Georgia voices you’ll be bragging about in ten years.

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Purchase your Festival Pass or sign up for a summer playwriting class today!

Festival Passes

Purchase a Festival Pass to guarantee priority access to your preferred dates for this summer’s shows!

Available in Two-, Four-, and Eight-Ticket increments, Festival Passes are redeemable for individual tickets of the Pass holder’s choosing, subject to availability at the time of redemption.

Festival Pass holders will have 48 hour early access on July 5 and 6 to redeem your pass for individual tickets and ensure you get seats according to your preferred schedule before tickets become available to the general public on July 7.

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Join Essential Theatre on Saturday May 17 for a Celebration of Georgia Playwrights!

Meet the 2025 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award Winner, Matt Hoffman, and celebrate Essential’s – and Georgia’s – rich theatre tradition and the community in which our playwrights grow and thrive.

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

Mix and mingle with folks who, like you, are proud of the literary and dramatic heritage of the place we call home. 

Meet the 2025 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award winner, Matt Hoffman, and hear about his play, which we’ll be premiering at the 2025 Essential Theatre Play Festival this summer.

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Congratulations to Matt Hoffman, two-time winner of the Essential Theatre Playwriting Award with his new play, A Very Special Hospital, just announced as the 2025 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award winner.

Essential Theatre is proud to announce the 2025 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award winner, Matt Hoffman, for his script A Very Special Hospital.  His play will receive a full production in the 2025 Essential Theatre Play Festival this summer as well as a $1,000 cash prize. Started in 2001, the Essential Theatre Playwriting Competition is the only competition of its kind, exclusively dedicated to Georgia playwrights and awarding both a cash prize and a full production. 

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The deadline for the 2026 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award competition is April 23, 2025.

The only competition exclusively dedicated to the work of Georgia playwrights, the winning play will receive both a full production and a $1,000 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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