by Parker Hilley

We at Essential Theatre would like to congratulate Ellen McQueen on her piece that recently won the first annual Atlanta Artists’ Lab put on by the Alliance Theatre! While we can all acknowledge that this sounds like a huge achievement – and this writer assures you reader that it is, in fact, a huge achievement – I think it would be easier to appreciate the magnitude of Ms. McQueen’s accomplishment if a little background was provided on her winning piece.

THE LOCAL, which was developed and directed by Ms. McQueen for the 2012 Essential Festival,

Continue reading →

A caustic comedy about the corporatization of religion, Christ America rounds out this summer’s Bare Essentials Reading Series this Tuesday night. Penned by Bill Gibson of Alpharetta, GA.

Tell us a little bit about the play we’ll be hearing Tuesday night.
Set in the corporate world of the near future, Christ America is about how companies profit from peoples’ fears, including their religious beliefs.

BRITT WACKENHUTT is a sales executive who, having been unemployed for 9 months, is under financial and other pressures to gain employment in an unhealthy economic climate.

Continue reading →

Continue reading →

Gerry Bartholomai, of Chamblee, GA, is the author of tonight’s Bare Essentials offering, Miss Adelia’s Garden. Miss Adelia’s Garden is a poignant drama about the friendship between a young gay man and two elderly southern women.

Tell us a little bit about your play.
Miss Adelia’s Garden is the story of Adelia and Martha – two lifelong friends who live a rather secluded life in a small town in Georgia.

What inspired you to write this play?
It started with a dream I had. In it, I was back in my grandmother’s house in the mountains of Cordoba.

Continue reading →

If you’ve been with us for awhile, you may have read last summer’s interview with playwright Theroun Patterson when That Uganda Play was read as part of the 2013 Bare Essentials series. In which case, you are aware that the 2010 proposal of what came to be known as the “Kill the Gays” bill by David Bahati to the Ugandan Parliament was the event which inspired him to write the play.

In December of 2013 a modified version of this bill was approved by Parliament and in February of this year, as we were holding auditions and preparing to start rehearsals for this summer’s production of That Uganda Play,

Continue reading →

Brian Forrester is a resident of Roswell, GA and is author of one of next week’s Bare Essentials plays, The Beast of Skitter Creek, a dark supernatural tale about the monster lurking within us.

What inspired you to write this play?
When I was in graduate school I got into a debate with a classmate who insisted that scary stories belong almost exclusively to prose or film/tv. I was convinced that I could tell a fun horror story on a live stage and took up the challenge. Later that winter, I was driving very late at night down a twisting mountain road through a snowstorm in West Virginia when a creepy-looking wooden sign emerged on the edge of my headlight beam.

Continue reading →

Meet Tyler Stuart, from Savannah, GA. His play, Limbo Night in Purgatory, is the next play in the Bare Essentials Reading Series. It’s an incredibly funny, quite silly, extremely irreverent comedy about the after-life.

Tell us a little bit about your play we’ll be hearing on July 28th.
Limbo Night In Purgatory is a comedy about the ultimate long-distance relationship.  When newlyweds Annie and Harold die, she gets sent to Heaven, and he gets sent to Hell.  With the help of their new friends – Hitler, Lou, and Jesus – Annie and Harold discover whether or not there’s really such a thing as “eternal”

Continue reading →

The first in a series highlighting the artists featured in this summer’s “Neighbors” art exhibit running in conjunction with the Essential Theatre Festival.

Alfred Conteh exhibits two three-dimensional works in the show, “Neighbors.” Conteh has long been associated with this area. He maintains a studio practice as part of a collective in the Metropolitan warehouses. He currently has works on display at ZuCot Gallery, 100 Centennial Olympic Park Dr., S.

from Alfred Conteh:
Growing up in a small southern college town, there weren’t many places in my area where I could be exposed to fine art.

Continue reading →

Atlanta Fringe 2014 is upon us, and this year’s Festival features 20 different performance groups from all over the country. We at Essential, of course, are super proud to report that of those, 11 different groups are Georgia artists. Way to represent!

Tonight at 8:00 at 7Stages Theatre,
check out the FREE PREVIEW PARTY
and get a sneak peek of all of the shows!

On the docket from Georgia, you will see:

Middle Eastern Dance, from Awalim Dance Company of Stone Mountain
Belly Dancing, from Beyond Borders of Atlanta
Spoken Word/Storytelling,

Continue reading →

SO MUCH THANKS to all 60 of our amazing, incredible and SOOO appreciated power2give campaign donors. Thanks to your support, this summer’s festival will continue to deliver the excellent theatre you’ve come to expect from Essential and our playwrights and artists, and we will be able to achieve all the goals we set for ourselves to better serve the artists and audiences who make our work worthwhile.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you each and every one:

Mark Perloe
Jennifer Kimball
Chris Carlsten
Justin Bradshaw
Cathy Jamison
Mary Marshall
Jill Buechner
Patricia Wright
Portia Cue
Judy Beasley
Rial Ellsworth
Jo Howarth-Noonan
Charlotte Fleck
Yolanda Asher
Topher Payne
Ellen McQueen
Bob Smith
Theo Harness
Brenda Porter
Joseph Gantt
Lenny Pallats
Susan Steifel
Vynnie Meli
Klimchak
Timothy McDonough
Kathleen McManus
Rebecca Westlake
Richard Belcher
Hank Kimmel
Sarah Cave
Kelly Christopher
Steven Ritchie
Robert Drake
Jill Patrick
Danyale Taylor
Hilary King
DeWayne Morgan
David Keith Best
Lee Buechele
Lori,

Continue reading →