What’s Essential in April 2016?
Click here to read more, or sign up for our mailing list at the bottom of the page to receive our newsletter directly!
Meet Our Casts!
Congratulations to this summer’s casts for the 2016 Essential Theatre Festival!
When Things Are Lost, by Derek Dixon, directed by Amber Bradshaw
Kerwin Thompson, Alex Towers, Anthony Goolsby, Alex Van, Jill Perry, Barrett Doyle, Chelsea Steverson and Gina Rickicki
and
Dispossessed, by Karen Wurl, directed by Peter Hardy
Amelia Fischer, Jake Krakofsky, Kathleen McManus, Scott Rousseau, Alyssa Caputo, Chris Schulz, Christie Vozniak, Tony Larkin and Jacob McKee
The 2016 Essential Festival power2give is now live!
Now through May 25, your dollars will go twice as far when you make a donation through our power2give campaign.
All donations are 100% tax-deductible, so give today!
About the Project
Essential Theatre has been supporting Georgia playwrights and presenting new plays to Atlanta audiences since 1987. This summer, we are proud to be presenting the fifth all-Georgia Essential Theatre Play Festival from July 29 to August 28 at the West End Performing Arts Center (945 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd, Atlanta, GA 30310).
In 2011, five years ago this summer, we presented our first festival exclusively dedicated to Georgia playwrights.
General Auditions March 19
The Essential Theatre will hold General Auditions for its 2016 season on March 19, from 12:30 – 5:30 p.m. We’ll be seeing people in the Atlanta Jugglers’ Association room in the Little Five Points Community Center (where Horizon Theatre is located) at 1083 Austin Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30307.
Please bring headshot and resume and prepare two contrasting monologs whose total running time will be no more than four minutes. For an appointment time, e-mail Peter Hardy.
Meet the Playwright: Karen Wurl
Co-winner of the 2016 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, Karen Wurl is a playwright, dramaturg, director, teacher, and semi-retired slam poet. She’s spent half her life in Chicago, half her life in Atlanta, and the extra bits in Michigan, Wisconsin and Texas. Her plays include Transference, Kim’s Theory about the Struggle Between Good and Evil, Only Children, The Play about Frank, Death or Serious Injury Can Occur, The Secret Life of the Proletariat, Miss Macbeth, Vampires, Now and at the Hour Of, Daughter of Fate: The True Story of a Caterer, In Which I Lose My Virginity to My Best Friend’s Older Brother,
Meet the Playwright: Derek Dixon
Co-winner of the 2016 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, Derek Dixon originally hails from Raleigh, North Carolina. He studied at Marymount Manhattan College and acting at the The Terry Schreiber Studio in New York. He’s performed in plays including The Lion in Winter, Romeo and Juliet, and The Boys In The Band and has written several full length plays in the last five years, including Homewrecker, Red Snow, Pictures of People, Work of Art, and Green Light. In 2015 he joined Working Title Playwrights, with whom he workshopped the play we’ll be seeing this summer.
What’s Essential in February 2016?
Click here to read more, or sign up for our mailing list at the bottom of the page to receive our newsletter directly!
Celebrate Georgia Playwrights with Essential Theatre and Red Brick Brewery February 29
Join the Essential Theatre at Red Brick Brewery on February 29 to celebrate 18 years of the Essential Theatre Festival, the fifth festival of all-Georgia-written plays. Be first in line to get your Festival Passes and meet this year’s Essential Theatre Playwriting Award co-winners, Karen Wurl and Derek Dixon!
2016 Festival Announcement Event PR
This year, Essential Theatre is celebrating our Playwriting Award Winners in style on February 29 at Red Brick Brewery. Partygoers will have the chance to mix and mingle with this year’s award-winners, have fun and win prizes with Trivial Matters,
And the winners are…
Essential Theatre announces the co-winners of the 2016 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award
2016 Award Winners press release
February 2016 – Essential Theatre is proud to announce the co-winners of the 2016 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award: Karen Wurl’s Dispossessed and Derek Dixon’s When Things Are Lost.
Both plays will receive full productions in the 2016 Essential Theatre Festival and a cash prize. Now in its sixteenth year, the Essential Theatre Playwriting Competition is the only contest exclusively dedicated to the work of Georgia playwrights.
Says Essential’s Artistic Director,
