Read on to find out about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing Monday night!

Tell us a little about yourself, personally and professionally.

I am an actor, playwright, and director who came to Atlanta from Chicago a decade ago. I’ve had two full-length plays produced in Atlanta: Honor The System at Out of Box Theatre, and Steal My Heart with New Origins Theatre Company. I’ve also had numerous short plays produced by Onion Man Productions and others, and I wrote, produced, and directed four sketch comedy shows under my former company Give Us Brains! I also write and perform political sketch comedy for the weekly podcast Barely Audible Whisper.

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Donate through power2give!

December 8 through January 22

For the first time in several years, we are THRILLED to announce that Essential Theatre has been awarded a power2give campaign from the City of Atlanta in support of the 2020 Essential Theatre Play Festival!
Our campaign is LIVE December 8 through January 22!

As a matching program, power2give is a gift to donors and Essential alike: for every dollar we raise through power2give, the City of Atlanta will contribute matching funds – up to $20,000!

If you think supporting Georgia’s writers and artists is important, if you enjoy seeing great new theatre by playwrights from your community, if you believe that Georgia’s playwrights are great 

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Join us at the West End Performing Arts Center for our next Bare Essentials Play Reading:

THE OUTRAGE MACHINE
Written by Daniel Carter Brown
Directed by Peter Hardy

“Is something that was supposed to bring us all together only driving us further apart?”

The Outrage Machine is a semi-comedic exploration of internet journalism, social media, and the culture of outrage. Twenty-something Rina Marsh gets a job writing headlines for The Centurion, an upstart website aiming to stand out for its integrity and responsibility. Rina finds that pushing people’s anger buttons results in more views,

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Wednesday night’s Bare Essentials reading is The Odds Against Death, co-written by John D. Babcock III (Independent, 2017) and Ted Westby. Read on to find out a little more about the pair, and about the play we’ll be seeing on Wednesday!

• Ted Westby

The writers:

John D. Babcock III is a writer for Agatha’s – A Taste of Mystery and the Mystery Café of Indianapolis. He is also a writer/performer with Sketchworks Comedy. John was cast in, and wrote additional scenes for,

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Monday night’s Bare Essentials reading is Waiting for Big Stuff, written by Allan Dodson. Read on to learn a little more about the playwright and the play we’ll be seeing Monday night!

Allan Dodson is a playwright, actor, and director that’s been hanging around Atlanta theater for longer than he’d like to admit. He had a delightful 15 years as a high school theater director and was fortunate enough to study acting under the late William Esper, protege to Sanford Meisner. He’s found himself accidentally specializing in shorter plays, and he’s been produced in various venues around town with a one-act,

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Tuesday Night’s Bare Essentials reading is Henry Darger Takes a Walk, written by Rosalind Sullivan-Lovett. Read on to learn a little more about Roz and the play we’ll be seeing on Tuesday!

Hi Roz, tell us a little about yourself!

I’m a recent Atlanta transplant from Portland, Oregon, having graduated from Emory two and a half months ago and stayed put. I’ve been writing plays since I was a Sophomore in high school, but “Henry Darger” was my first to be published and my most successful to date, having been read previously in Theater Emory’s Brave New Works series and at the Tennessee Williams Literary festival,

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Leviticus Jelks III (left) wrote the first Bare Essentials reading in this summer’s Festival series, Day of Saturn. Read on to learn a little more about Leviticus and the play we’ll be seeing this Saturday afternoon!

Hi Leviticus, tell us a little about yourself!

I was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, where I pursued the study of playwriting at the Horizon Theatre and The Alliance Theatre. In 2014, I was accepted as a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. I am the proud co-recipient of the 2016 KCACTF Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award,

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Essential Theatre is now accepting play script submissions for the 2020 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award competition!

Essential’s competition is free to enter, and any previously unproduced play by a Georgia playwright is eligible. There are no restrictions as to style, subject matter or length (though preference is given to plays with a running time of at least an hour). The winning playwright will receive a cash prize of $750, and the play will be given a full production as part of the 2020 Essential Theatre Play Festival. The script submission deadline is April 23, 2019.

Submit a Play

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Emily McClain is co-winner of the 2019 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, along with Ben Thorpe. Emily is the co-director of theatre at Buford High School. She graduated from Berry College with a B.A. in Theatre. Her work has been performed by Out Of Box Theatre, Merely Players, Atlanta AppCo, and the Courtroom Drama Series. She is a member of Working Title Playwrights and Merely Writers. She is particularly passionate about playwriting in schools and spent 9 years working with Georgia Thespians to develop the PlayWorks program for high school theatre students. Slaying Holofernes is her first full-length play.

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Ben Thorpe is co-winner of the 2019 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, along with Emily McClain. Join us as we get to know Ben a little bit better:

ET: Congratulations, Ben! We’ll be spending plenty of time together in the coming months, but for now, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

BT: I’m an actor and playwright, originally from Snellville, GA. I went to Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA and lived in New York City for years before moving back to Atlanta in 2015. I’ve been in productions around town at Actor’s Express,

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