We’re excited to announce the lineup for the 25th Annual Essential Theatre Play Festival, which will be running from August 9 – September 1 at 7 Stages! For our Silver Anniversary Festival we will continue our long tradition of bringing new work by Georgia playwrights to the stage by producing a repertory of two World Premiere productions, along with staged readings and other special presentations.
Opening the Festival on August 9 will be The Other Part of the Picture, a comic drama about a group of students who find a mysterious batch of old letters in the house two of them are living in. Written by Essential’s Founding Artistic Director Peter Hardy, it’s won playwriting prizes from the New York Script Awards and the Best Script Awards – London. It was also chosen for the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival, where it was given a staged reading. This will be the play’s World Premiere production.
Entering the repertory on August 16 will be Emily McClain’s The Rock & The Hard Place, a powerful drama about a young woman’s desperate efforts to free her innocent father from Death Row. Emily’s play is the winner of the 2024 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, the competition that is exclusively dedicated to the work of Georgia writers, with the winner getting both a full production and a cash prize of $1,000.
The Festival will also feature three evenings of staged readings of new Georgia plays in our Bare Essentials series, a partner presentation with Hush Harbor Lab, Atlanta’s Black play development company, and other special presentations which will be announced soon.
The Essential Theatre is the longest-running company dedicated to the work of Georgia playwrights – Giving Georgia a Voice and Bringing Atlanta What’s New since 1999.
