What’s Essential in November 2014?
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What’s Essential in October 2014?
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FINAL WEEK!
HAPPENING NOW: Our fall power2give fundraising campaign!
Help give Georgia playwrights a voice by donating today! Every donation is matched dollar-for-dollar by funds from the City of Atlanta, so your gift goes twice as far! Click here to find out more and hear our Artistic Director, Peter Hardy, share his thoughts about giving Georgia playwrights a voice and tell you more about the work your donation will support.
10 Contemporary Playwrights You Should Know…
…Three of them are Georgians, and two of those are Essential Theatre Playwriting Award Winners! Looks like we’re not the only ones who are fans of great Georgia writers. Congratulations to Topher Payne, Lauren Gunderson and Steve Yockey for making the Top 10 list.
Check out the full article in Southern Theatre Magazine (starting on p19).
“Magnetic” 50th Anniversary production of PHILADELPHIA, HERE I COME!
Essential’s Artistic Director Peter Hardy was onstage with several other familiar faces in Aris Theatre’s second-ever production, the just-closed PHILADELPHIA, HERE I COME!
An excellent production of a classic but rarely produced play, an ArtsATL review called it “Magnetic” and “a signal of the kind of classy work the company seems capable of.”
Working Title Playwrights interviews Essential’s own Peter Hardy!
Click here to read the full interview!
What’s Essential in September 2014?
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“Learning to Fly” Takes Flight on the anniversary of 9/11
by Jennifer Kimball
Today is September 11. Last night, the President announced that we “will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat” of ISIS. This weekend, Amber Bradshaw and Thom Stanley, whose work you recently saw on Essential’s stage in this summer’s World Premiere production of That Uganda Play, are at the 9th Micro-Festival of Unfinished Puppetry in Quebec, Canada, workshopping and presenting a full one-act length version of their collaboratively developed Learning to Fly, which premiered this past spring as a 12 minute short in XPT at the Center for Puppetry Arts.
We’ve been nominated for the Suzis!
We’re proud to announce that, in our first year of participating in the Suzi Bass Awards, Essential Theatre has its first nomination: Karla Jennings’ Ravens & Seagulls for Best World Premiere Production! Congrats and thanks to director David Crowe, dramaturg Michael Evenden, and our incredible cast: Sam Traquina, Gina Rickicki, Teresa DeBerry, Jill Perry, Suzanne Roush, Patti French and Sarah Wallis!
And here’s something else that’s cool: Of the eleven plays up for the Suzi’s Gene-Gabriel Moore Playwriting Award, three of them were produced by the Essential Theatre — more than any other company! To wit: That Uganda Play by Theroun Patterson,
2014 Festival Highlights
by Jennifer Kimball
What a summer it has been! This was our sixteenth Festival, and our third all-Georgia Festival. A revamped Festival layout featuring two world premieres and six readings. All Georgia writers, all Georgia artists. Our first year in West End, our first year in the Suzi Bass competition. Two Suzi recommendations and one nomination. New community partnerships with the West End Performing Arts Center and Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery. Continued relationships with VSA Arts of Georgia and Stagehands sign language interpreters through them, record levels of Festival sponsorships and community support. It has truly been an exciting and inspiring experience!
