We are proud to announce that the Essential Theatre performance of Vynnie Meli’s “Jim Crow and the Rhythm Darlings” is to be presented during the National Black Arts Festival. For more information about National Black Arts Festival Around Town, click here.
Sarah Falkenburg Wallace – Dexter (Food for Fish)
This is the fourth Festival I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in. I have always enjoyed being a part of the festival and have played a voice in the attic, a murderous college student, & a girl who turned into a horse. However, simply being cast as a man has turned into one of the most challenging roles of my acting career. I have enjoyed the process as one of the most truly involved roles I’ve worked to create since Dexter is the complete opposite of me in every way.
Our sponsors have put together and incredible prize package for our raffle. Please check it out.
Come support our guest poetry readers as they share a brief selection before selected performances.
As soon as I started reading Adam Szymkowicz’s FOOD FOR FISH, I knew that I wanted to include it in the 2009 Essential Theatre Play Festival, and that I wanted to direct it. I’m not sure I could have articulated why I felt this way, except that found the script to be funny and weird and beautiful (a combination that I always like). There’s a lot of stuff in it about writing, which I’m drawn to, and it also looks at the differences between the way we often try to idealize ourselves into fantasy relationships, instead of dealing with the reality of the people we get close to (another fascination of mine,
Essential Theatre appreciates its’ volunteer ushers. We have a few remaining opportunities to participate as an usher and great new theatre. These dates are still available. Please email us Essential AT ivf.com if you wish to usher on any of the dates listed below.
I came to Atlanta in the fall of 1986, hired by the late Michael Horne to direct a Wendy Wasserstein comedy called Isn’t It Romantic at Theatre in the Square, and then sticking around to perform in the Horizon Theatre’s Christmas production of Alan Ayckbourn’s Season’s Greetings. By that time, I’d decided to stay. In 1987 I was acting in another comedy at the Horizon, Christopher Durang’s The Marriage of Bette and Boo, but already I was wanting to make my own productions happen, and in the fall of ’87 I produced and directed the first Essential Theatre show – two ghost story one-acts by John Pielmeier (author of Agnes of God),
JIM CROW AND THE RHYTHM DARLINGS by Vynnie Meli. World Premiere. Directed by Betty Hart
Featuring: Rachel Bodenstein, Enisha Brewster, Daniel Burnley, DeAndrea Crawford, Nadir Mateen, Delesa Sims
It’s World War Two, and with so many men going off to serve, the previously all-male world of jazz is opening up to women for the first time. The International Rhythm Darlings are an all-female African-American band touring the Deep South, which would be a tough situation in the best of times … but now they’ve got a last-minute replacement in the group, a white Jewish woman,
Plagued A Love Story
Book and lyrics by Vynnie Meli [2009 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award Winner]
Music by Casey Filiaci
Congratulations are out to JIM CROW AND THE RHYTHM DARLINGS playwright Vynnie Meli. Her musical, PLAGUED will be part of this year’s prestigious New York Music Theatre Festival. Well done Vynnie. You can see her play JIM CROW AND THE RHYTHM DARLINGS as part of this year’s Essential Theatre Festival.
Cinderella celebrates her 20th anniversary to a man who isn’t always so charming. And Cinderella’s daughter, Dust Bunny, takes on an even greater challenge: the Bubonic Plague. Dust Bunny has to say goodbye to the handsome chronicler,
