Opening the Festival on August 9 will be The Other Part of the Picture, a comic drama about a group of students who find a mysterious batch of old letters in the house two of them are living in. Written by Essential’s Founding Artistic Director Peter Hardy, it’s won playwriting prizes from the New York Script Awards and the Best Script Awards – London. It was also chosen for the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival, where it was given a staged reading. This will be the play’s World Premiere production.

Audience Advisories: Adult language and sexual situations

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World Premiere opens Friday, August 18, 2023

A poetic drama about two families in 1960s rural Georgia, one black and one white, trying to find their path and keep their dreams alive. 

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Performance Schedule

Thursday August 17 (8pm) Preview performance
Friday August 18 (8pm) Opening Night
Sunday August 20 (7pm)
Monday August 21 (8pm) Industry Night
Saturday August 26 (8pm)
Sunday August 27 (2pm)
Saturday September 2 (8pm)
Sunday September 3 (2pm)

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In The Press

World Premiere Of THE WISHING PLACE Opens August 18 At 7Stages

Essential Theatre’s 24th Festival Continues with Beverly Austin’s The Wishing Place

“a lyrical serenade into the lives of two neighboring families in mid-60’s Georgia.”

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Opening Friday August 5 – A play about hope, shining a light on the darkest corners of grief – Winner of the 2022 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award – Winner of the 2022 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award.

The funny and heart-expanding true story about one woman’s wild and epic journey into motherhood.

On a hot night in New Orleans, two very different women — lost in loneliness and the living death of feeling invisible – try to connect and find a way to bring themselves back to life.

A collaborative theatre project about the City of Atlanta, by the writers of Atlanta, developed and directed by Ellen McQueen, award-winning director of Ice Glen and Sally and Glen at the Palace.

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A comic drama about the growing friendship between two very different college students working together in the lobby of a 1970s movie theatre in a southern university town. Written by artistic director Peter Hardy. Winner of a New Southern Theatre Festival Playwriting Award.

“One of the year’s best shows” -Sunday Paper & Atlanta Theatre Buzz

“Best Atlanta Playwright” -Creative Loafing

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Mysterious Connections, written by Peter Hardy and directed by Ellen McQueen, is a fantasy based around two women who grow close and eventually find themselves able to enter each other’s dreams.

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By Avery Sharpe
Directed by Ellen McQueen
World Premiere opens Friday, August 3, 2018. 

Woke follows two friends from different backgrounds who are trying to navigate the already rocky transition from high school to college. When a calamitous event captures national attention, they are forced to wrestle with their different understandings of social awareness. Through family, romance, and their own friendship, they painstakingly and comically explore what it truly means to be woke.

Cast: Derrick Robertson (Adrian), Paul Danner (Jesse), DeShon Green (Tanisha), Karina Simmons (Natasha), Kathleen Wattis (Martha),

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By Lauren Gunderson
Directed by Ellen McQueen
ADA AND THE MEMORY ENGINE press kit with photos

Regional premiere opened July 28, 2017.

One of the latest plays penned by our very first Essential Theatre Playwriting Award Winner and the Most Produced Living Playwright in America in 2016, Lauren Gunderson, this play is about Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer. Described by the Huffington Post as “a rare and special artistic achievement,” this delightful play gives you plenty to think about whether you’re a poet, a programmer, a history buff, a technophile or a hopeless romantic.

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