Festival News

CURRENT HEADLINES: Uganda Antigay Law Struck Down Last Week!

If you’ve been with us for awhile, you may have read last summer’s interview with playwright Theroun Patterson when That Uganda Play was read as part of the 2013 Bare Essentials series. In which case, you are aware that the 2010 proposal of what came to be known as the “Kill the Gays” bill by David Bahati to the Ugandan Parliament was the event which inspired him to write the play.

In December of 2013 a modified version of this bill was approved by Parliament and in February of this year, as we were holding auditions and preparing to start rehearsals for this summer’s production of That Uganda Play,

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Meet the Playwright: Brian Forrester

Brian Forrester is a resident of Roswell, GA and is author of one of next week’s Bare Essentials plays, The Beast of Skitter Creek, a dark supernatural tale about the monster lurking within us.

What inspired you to write this play?
When I was in graduate school I got into a debate with a classmate who insisted that scary stories belong almost exclusively to prose or film/tv. I was convinced that I could tell a fun horror story on a live stage and took up the challenge. Later that winter, I was driving very late at night down a twisting mountain road through a snowstorm in West Virginia when a creepy-looking wooden sign emerged on the edge of my headlight beam.

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Meet the Playwright: Frankie L. Hardin

Meet Frankie Hardin, resident of Newnan, GA and author of the next Bare Essentials play, Perfect Faith. A fascinating look at the political and religious struggles surrounding Hypatia of Alexandria, a woman who became one of the most famous teachers and philosophers of the 5th Century A. D.

What was the inspiration for this play?

I stumbled upon the Hypatia story while doing some research and was very intrigued by it. I consider myself to be a feminist writer – that is, much of my work is inspired by and in support of stories of strong women,

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“Neighbors,” an exhibition of visual art created in West End and surrounding communities

As part of our continued partnership with the West End Performing Arts Center and Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery, during the Festival this summer you get to enjoy a unique art exhibit when you come to see the show: Neighbors, an exhibition of visual art created in West End and surrounding communities.
Curated by Princess Jones, on behalf of Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery, and in collaboration with Essential Theatre and the West End Performing Arts Center, this exhibit is on display July 9-29 and features works by Wycliffe “Linc” Bennett, Nate Dyer, Heather Johnson, Children in the Forever Family Program, 

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Meet the Playwright: Robin L. Burke

Time has just flown, and NEXT MONDAY we will be kicking off the 2014 Essential Theatre Festival with our first Bare Essentials reading, Trolls by Robin L. Burke of Snellville, Ga.

We had a chance to speak with the playwright, and here is what she had to say:

Tell us about the show we are going to see this Monday night.
TROLLS is a farce about a practical-minded attorney who discovers her father believes his river home has trolls.  I guess it’s a pretty fair question to wonder what inspired that.

What was your inspiration for writing this play?

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RAVENS & SEAGULLS |The Essential Theatre Festival

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE- ATLANTA, GA

RAVENS & SEAGULLS, written by Karla Jennings, one of the co-winners of the 2014 The Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, focuses on three women who face the final days of their ailing sister’s life. Through exploring the dynamics of sisterhood and familial strife and companionship, RAVENS & SEAGULLS is at once emotionally raw and painfully funny, standing as a transcendent study of love, mortality and survival.

Since the beginning of the festival in 1999, The Essential Theatre has committed to producing at least one new play a year by a Georgia playwright.

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