This Friday,  July 27,  join Essential Theatre as we kick off opening weekend of the 20th Essential Theatre Play Festival right, with a special preshow reception provided by Suryana Cuisine.

Join us at 6:00 for a half-hour presentation and update about the Syrian Refugee Theatre Project we started this past spring thanks to a grant from Turner Voices, and use promo code TEN to stay and see the opening night performance of Built to Float for just $10! Enjoy great food and conversation; hear about this exciting new project Essential has under way;

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My mother, Martha Nell Hardy, was an actress, educator and producer, with a lifelong passion for the theatre. For twenty years now I’ve been producing the annual Essential Theatre Festival, and that’s one of the ways in which I’ve tried to honor her memory.

Last year the Martha Nell Hardy Memorial Fund was established by an anonymous donor, with a gift of $10,000, to honor my mother and to provide financial stability and resources to the Essential Festival, a project that she supported and deeply believed in.

If you have a love of theatre and believe in our mission to develop and produce new plays by Georgia writers,

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Join Essential Theatre at 7pm on Thursday, April 12, 2018 in Angora Hall at the Clarkston Community Center
if you’re interested in finding out more about this project, networking, and exploring opportunities to get involved.
RSVP here.
Download Apr 12 Meeting Flyer
Download Arabic flyer

About the Project:
Essential Theatre is beginning Phase 1 of a project on the subject of Syrian refugees, and we are looking for team members!
Thanks to support from Turner Voices, over the next three months we will be building relationships with and gathering the stories,

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Avery Sharpe is an actor and recently a playwright from Atlanta, GA. After studying Acting and Spanish at Kennesaw State University, he has performed at a variety of stages across Atlanta. Some of his recent credits include: Pearl Cleage’s Tell Me My Dream (Alliance Theatre), A Bucket of Blessings (Alliance Theatre), and Marcus; Or the Secret of Sweet (Actor’s Express). He has also done voiceover work and various commercials in the TV/Film world, but can be found most frequently at Dad’s Garage Improv Theatre where he performs weekly as a company member. As a playwright, he has discovered a passion for telling stories that echo the beautiful complexity of humanity,

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Rachel Graf Evans (left) is a writer and theatre artist most interested in silenced and forgotten stories. Her Atlanta playwriting credits include: SUIT YOURSELF (Georgia Lawyers for the Arts’ Courtroom Drama CLE Showcase @ Actor’s Expres); INCH BY INCH (Synchronicity Theatre’s Stripped Bare development program); PEACH COBBLER (The Weird Sisters’ Dangerous Women); THE RIGHT KIND OF MARIGOLD (Working Title Playwrights’ 24 Hour Festival); [IF YOU DON’T KNOW] THE PLEDGE (One minute Play Festival @ Actor’s Express); THE HANDMAID RHIANNON; NEWFOUND MASCOT; HER NAME IS HUNTER (Horizon Theatre Apprentice Company Showcase). Rachel currently serves as the Dramatists Guild Young Ambassador for Atlanta,

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At noon this Saturday, Makeshift Circus Collective‘s Sara Gregory will lead a workshop entitled Mindful Story Gathering: Seeking to address social barriers from beginning to end of community based art making processes. This workshop will focus on ways to approach the information gathering process of community based art making. MakeShift is an Atlanta based collective that calls together diverse groups of social artists and community members to delve into issues of importance. Their current initiative, the Gender Project, will produce a circus show driven by and culminating in community dialogue to be shared free of charge in metro Atlanta.

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The Essential Theatre is taking appointments for their 2018 General Auditions, to be held from 6:15 to 10 p.m. on Monday, March 19.  Auditioners are asked to prepare two contrasting monologs that do not last more than a total of 4 minutes.  To make appointments, call 404-558-4523 or e-mail [email protected].

The auditions will be held in the Jugglers’ Room on the top floor of the Little Five Points Community Center, 1083 Austin Avenue NE, Atlanta, GA 30307.  This is the building that Horizon Theater is located in, and the room is on the top floor of the building,

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And the winners are…
Essential Theatre announces the winners of the 2018 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award

February 2018 – Essential Theatre is proud to announce there are two winners of the 2018 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award: Rachel Graf Evans’ Built to Float and Avery Sharpe’s Woke.

Built to Float and Woke will both receive a full production in the 2018 Essential Theatre Festival this summer as well as a cash prize. The runners up for the prize were: Rick and Ricky by Lee Raines, 

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