Atlanta, June 2016 – Tickets are now on sale for the 18th Annual Essential Theatre Play Festival, which kicks off in less than two months!

This summer, Essential Theatre continues its tradition of premiering the best new work by Georgia playwrights for Atlanta audiences with the 18th Annual Essential Theatre Play Festival, the eighteenth since its inception and the fifth consisting entirely of Georgia-created world premieres.

The festival runs July 29 through August 28 at the West End Performing Arts Center, located at 945 Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard.

This summer, audiences will see the World Premieres of Dispossessed by Karen Wurl and When Things Are Lost by Derek Dixon,

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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,

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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,

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OLD SHIP OF ZION play opening press release

Atlanta, July 2015 – Join us for the professional world premiere of The Old Ship of Zion, by Columbus, GA playwright Natalia Naman, opening July 24.

A warm, touching play about the members of a small African-American church, struggling to keep its doors open and adapt to changing times. Mama Gwen is a beloved elder who feels the burden of others who depend on the strength of her faith, and Quincy is a young man who loves his church but is beginning to realize that he’s gay.

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2015 Essential Theatre Play Festival Press Release JULY

Atlanta, July 2015 – The 17th Annual Essential Theatre Festival kicks off July 24 at the West End Performing Arts Center, located at 945 Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard in Atlanta. This summer, Essential will be presenting the World Premiere of the 2015 playwriting award winner, Lillian Likes It by Joshua Mikel, and the Professional World Premiere of The Old Ship of Zion, by Columbus, GA native Natalia Naman.

New this year, in addition to the two fully staged plays and the Bare Essentials Reading Series,

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2015 Essential Play Festival Lineup downloadable press kit

Essential Theatre continues its tradition of premiering the best new work by Georgia playwrights for Atlanta audiences with this summer’s Essential Theatre Play Festival, taking place July 24 through August 23 at the West End Performing Arts Center, located at 945 Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard.

The West End Performing Arts Center is an intimate venue nestled in the heart of historic West End, two blocks from I-20 and an easy walk from the West End MARTA station. If you attended last summer’s festival,

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2015 Essential Playwriting Contest Winner downloadable press kit

Essential Theatre is proud to announce the winner of the 2015 Essential Theatre Playwriting Contest: Joshua Mikel’s Lillian Likes It. The winning play will receive both a full production in the 2015 Essential Theatre Festival and a cash prize. Now in its fifteenth year, the Essential Theatre Playwriting Contest is the only contest exclusively dedicated to the work of Georgia playwrights.

Says Essential’s Artistic Director, Peter Hardy, “We liked Lillian Likes it because it’s a funny, theatrical look at the world of internet dating,

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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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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE- ATLANTA, GA-

That Uganda Play, written by Theroun Patterson, one of the co-winners of the 2014 The Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, is an epic story that moves from America to Africa and back again, imagining the ghosts of war, political corruption and personal betrayal that might lie behind the recent anti-Gay legislation in the nation of Uganda.  Previously, Theroun won the Essential Award back in 2011 for his family drama A Thousand Circlets, which was a big hit in that year’s Essential Theatre Festival.

Since the beginning of the festival in 1999,

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – ATLANTA, GA –  MAY 27, 2014

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. Essential began its annual Essential Theatre Playwriting Competition in 2001, strengthening its ties to local writers by establishing  the only competition exclusively dedicated to playwrights in the state of Georgia. The award for this competition? Production of the play in that year’s Festival and a cash stipend. Now in its 14th year, TheEssential Theatre Playwriting Award co-recipients are Karla Jennings and Theroun Patterson.  

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