Essential Theatre

GO LOCAL, We are still looking for short pieces for this years

2012-01-06T07:41:00.000-05:00

Just a reminder -- the Essential Theatre is accepting short playsto be considered for this summer's THE LOCAL project. We want plays setat specific locations in Atlanta, and we're accepting submissions through Jan.15. You can e-mail submissions to pmhardy@aol.com. The plays can be in any style, can be realistic or not, and be set in the pastor the present. We'rehoping to get submissions about as many different real places in Atlanta aspossible. This project is meant to about Atlanta, theplace we live, written by the people who live here.

AND -- because we want this project to be open to as many peopleas possible -- and some people hesitate at the thought of writing a play -- weinvite people to just write down stories or memories you may have about placesin the city and just send them in, and we may find a way to make use ofthem. If you have questions about any of those, feel free to calldirector Ellen McQueen at 404-378-9817.

You can be an Essential GRAPHICS DESIGNER!

2011-12-11T16:00:00.001-05:00

Essential Theatre seeks a talented graphics designer who enjoys theatre and is able to work for a small stipend and tickets.

The Essential Theatre has long been the leading champion of Georgia playwrights, producing and developing many new plays by local writers. Coming up in 2012, we’ll be celebrating the 25th year of our existence by presenting our first-ever ALL GEORGIA PLAY FESTIVAL!

EVELYN IN PURGATORY by Topher Payne
World Premiere!
Five public school teachers are caught in the limbo of the disciplinary “Rubber Room”, waiting for their cases to be heard and their fates decided. Poignant and funny, it’s like The Breakfast Club for teachers, as they share secrets with each other and begin to look into their own hearts. Winner of the 2012 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award.

BAT-HAMLET by Jordan Pulliam
World Premiere!
What if Shakespeare had conceived the melancholy Dane as a costumed crimefighter? The worlds of comic books and the Bard of Avon come together in this hilarious mash-up, a tale of murder and revenge, poetry and BAM! SOCK! POW!

THE LOCAL by Local Authors
World Premiere!
A collaborative theatre project about the City of Atlanta, by the writers of Atlanta, to be developed and directed by Ellen McQueen, award-winning director of Ice Glen and Sally and Glen at the Palace. A similar project is happening in Tampa, Florida, and we hope to reach out to theatres around the country to eventually make this a nation-wide phenomenon.

If you are interested, please email mperloe AT EssentialTheatre.com or post a comment. We can provide more information about the plays as well as graphics required. Thanks.

Essential Theatre Seeks Play Submission for THE LOCAL

2011-11-15T07:25:00.000-05:00

The Essential Theatre invites Georgia writers to submit short plays to be considered for THE LOCAL, a collaborative theatre project about the City of Atlanta to be developed and directed by Ellen McQueen, for production in the next Essential Theatre Play Festival (coming up in the summer of 2012). A similar project is currently in development by Stagewrights, a company in Tampa, Florida.

All plays must be set at a specific location in the Metropolitan Atlanta area, and all of them must, in some way, touch upon the subject of homelessness. The scripts do not have to be about the homeless (although they can be) and do not have to have homeless characters onstage (although they can). The idea is to have homelessness be the thread connecting all the pieces, but the subject may be treated glancingly (even a single sentence or image), be absolutely central or anything in between. Writers may also interpret their definition of “homelessness”. We hope to receive submissions with a wide variety of styles and tones, set at many different locations around the city, and we’re open to the possibilities of incorporating music and movement in the submitted material.

Scripts can have running time of anywhere from two to twenty minutes, and should feature small casts of no more than five. The submission deadline will be on January 15, 2012. Multiple submissions are allowed. All writers will retain the rights to their own work. All writers will be paid something; the budgeted royalties for this piece will be $30.00 per performance, so how much individual writers will be paid will depend on how many pieces are chosen.

Submissions can be e-mailed to pmhardy@aol.com, or sent to

The Essential Theatre

1414 Foxhall Lane #10

Atlanta, GA 30316

For more information about the Essential Theatre, to read about our 25-year history of bringing new plays to Atlanta audiences, please visit our website at www.EssentialTheatre.com.

MAT Awards

2011-09-26T07:07:00.002-04:00

We're proud and happy to announce that the Essential Theatre's production of Rita Dove's THE DARKER FACE OF THE EARTH, directed by Betty Hart, has won the Metropolitan Atlanta Theater Award for Best Ensemble In A Play. This is the thirteenth MAT Award that the Essential Theatre was won in the past four years.

Sally and Glen Return to the Palace

2011-08-05T12:49:00.000-04:00

SALLY AND GLEN AT THE PALACE, written by Essential's Artistic Director Peter Hardy, will be given a staged reading at the Tallapoosa Theatre Festival (located west of Atlanta) on August 27. For more information
SALLY AND GLEN was a big hit with both critics and audiences when it was produced as part of the 2010 Essential Theatre Play Festival, ending up on "Best of the Year" lists for both The Sunday Paper and Atlanta Theater Buzz, while Hardy was Creative Loafing's Critic's Pick for Best Atlanta Playwright.

The 2011 Essential Theatre Play Festival has one more week!

2011-07-25T12:33:00.000-04:00

The 2011 Essential Theatre Play Festival has one more week! We close July 31. Visit www.EssentialTheatre.com for tickets.

“I wish everyone in the Atlanta theatre scene would come out and see Essential's fine work."
Yolanda Asher (Founding Member of the Suzi Awards)

“I am so impressed with the amazing season you have put together.”
Paul Holly (Founding Member of the Suzi Awards)

“Congratulations on assembling another three diverse, thought-provoking and entertaining plays, wonderfully directed and acted by some of Atlanta's best talent.”
Bill Murphey (Suzi Award-Winning Actor)

Monday, July 25 - A SLEEPING COUNTRY (Industry Night) 8 p.m.
Tuesday, July 26 – “My Brother’s Knife” Play Reading, 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, July 27 – “The Spins” Play Reading, 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, July 28 - GREAT FALLS 8 p.m.
Friday, July 29 - A THOUSAND CIRCLETS, 8 p.m.
Saturday, July 30 - A SLEEPING COUNTRY, 8 p.m.
Sunday, July 31 -- GREAT FALLS, 2 p.m.

GREAT FALLS - An Atlanta Theater Fans Critique

2011-07-24T12:04:00.002-04:00

"Confessions are good for the soul – so they say. For many people, and families, bringing a secret into the light of day is a healing process. Like any family, the one in Essential Theatre’s Great Falls, holds its share of baggage and secrets."

"The play takes the audience on a parallel emotional journey to the characters’ own trip through the scenic west. A play this emotional requires a talented cast and well-crafted dialogue. If a play is poorly written, great acting can save it and vice-versa. Audiences seeing Great Falls don’t have any worry; it excels in both."

"Both Emmett Furrow and Ashleigh Hoppe bring emotional depth and a genuine sense of humanity to each of their characters to win the audience over. Great Falls takes us on a journey to discover ourselves and confront our own hurts and fears as we watch two characters fall apart and heal onstage. If nothing else, the acting alone makes this play worth seeing." Kenny Norton

READ MORE

Why haven't you seend "A Thousand Circlets" yet?

2011-07-21T11:25:00.001-04:00

There are a limited number of performances remainging to see Essential Theatre's world premiere production of Theroun Patterson's prize winning play, "A Thousand Circlets". You don't want to miss this one.

"Essential Theatre's production of Theroun Patterson's A THOUSAND CIRCLETS is wonderful. Theroun Patterson's writing is smart, funny, tender, painful, and absolutely real."

Jo Howarth Noonan

“A Thousand Circlets is powerful and well played. The complex family dynamic reminds me of Long Days Journey into Night."

Rebecca B. Rogers

“Theroun Patterson’s A Thousand Circlets is another artistic coup for the Essential Theatre’s Play Festival. Theroun’s writing is both poetic and pure. It evokes both tears and joy, sometimes simultaneously. The cast of strong actors is made even stronger by Betty Hart’s direction. I am going back. You should come too. “
Sarah Emma Hall

"A Thousand Circlets was stellar in writing and production. Thank you all!"

Valetta Anderson

“Saw The Essential Theatre production of Theroun Patterson's A Thousand Circlets. Enjoyed it. Two more plays to see. This festival is a great event for Atlanta."

James Beck

"Exceptional work -- all around. We saw A Thousand Circlets and Great Falls this past weekend. Dynamic, thought-provoking stagecraft."

Ralph Caldwell

“Saw a really great play yesterday evening, A Thousand Circlets by Theroun Patterson at Actors Express...wonderfully written, staged and performed!!”

Sherry Lee

Audience Speaks Out About Essential's GREAT FALLS

2011-07-16T10:17:00.002-04:00

"So enjoyed Great Falls last night. Ellen McQueen's superb direction led two very talented, "new on the Atlanta scene" actors down the road to discovery. Thanks for the trip! Great work!" Paul Holly

"People! Go see GREAT FALLS and all the wonderful plays at Essential Theatre! GREAT FALLS is amazing! Ashleigh Hoppe rocked it!" Bree Dawn Shannon

"Saw Great Falls tonight. Not to be missed. Great story great characters wonderful performances and as usual inspired directing. See it. " Jayson Smith

"Congrats on the Great Falls emotional roller coaster, it's an intense ride, the actors did a wonderful job and the directing and scene design really capture the glorious melancholy of vast spaces and journeys into the past." Karla Jennings

"Another incredibly strong performance of the Essential Theatre Festival. Great Falls is a lovely play that is directed and performed beautifully. Kudos to Mr. Hardy and the entire production team and cast. The Essential Theatre Festival has become one of my favorite events of the summer. I can't wait to see the rest of the plays!" Amanda Cucher

"A Thousand Circlets" Audience Comments

2011-07-16T07:33:00.001-04:00

"Essential Theatre's production of Theroun Patterson's A THOUSAND CIRCLETS is wonderful. Theroun Patterson's writing is smart, funny, tender, painful, and absolutely real. The performances are honest. Betty Hart's direction is spot on. It's hard for me to watch anything about Alzheimer's as it always hits a little too close to home. This production was no exception but the relationship between husband and wife was one of the more honest depictions I ever seen of the pain, anger, and confusion that rains down in the early days of diagnosis. I will be seeing it again...as soon as I see the other two shows in the festival -- A SLEEPING COUNTRY & GREAT FALLS." Jo Howarth Noonan

Essential Theatre Pajama Party

2011-07-10T13:05:00.001-04:00

A good time was had by all at Essential Theatre's "A Sleeping Country" Pajama Party.
Thanks to Nancy Johnson for the great photos!

GREAT FALLS Audience Speaks Out

2011-07-08T17:06:00.000-04:00

Bitch & MonkeyMan @ Great Falls

"Saw Great Falls tonight. Not to be missed. Great story great characters wonderful performances and as usual inspired directing. See it. "
Jayson Smith

"Congrats on the Great Falls emotional roller coaster, it's an intense ride, the actors did a wonderful job and the directing and scene design really capture the glorious melancholy of vast spaces and journeys into the past."
Karla Jennings

"Another incredibly strong performance of the Essential Theatre Festival. Great Falls is a lovely play that is directed and performed beautifully. Kudos to Mr. Hardy and the entire production team and cast. The Essential Theatre Festival has become one of my favorite events of the summer. I can't wait to see the rest of the plays!"
Amanda Cucher

July 9 "A Sleeping Country" PJ Party Prize

2011-07-06T09:05:00.000-04:00

Attend the Saturday July 9^th performance of Essential Theatre’s “A Sleeping Country” in your pajamas and you'll receive a free ticket plus cookies and milk. After the performance, Dr. Midge and the audience will help choosing a deserving insomniac to award a door prize. Wear your PJs and bring your friends for a fun-filled, laugh a minute theatre and you may win a 'naughty' gift from www.SlumberPartiesbySheilah.com.

A Thousand Circlets by Theroun D'Arcy Patterson

2011-07-05T20:49:00.002-04:00

Metropolitan Atlanta Theatre Awards Recognizes Essential's Excellence

2011-07-05T15:09:00.000-04:00

Last year's Essential Theatre Play Festival has received nine nominations from the 2011 Metropolitan Atlanta Theatre Awards. Over the previous three seasons, the Essential Theatre has received twenty-six nominations and won eleven awards.

Gabriel Jason Dean's QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT was nominated for Best Original Work.

Rita Dove's THE DARKER FACE OF THE EARTH received nominations for Best Ensemble, Best Direction (Betty Hart), Best Sound Design (Jon Summers), Best Lighting Design (Trish Harris), Best Costume Design (Jane Kroessig), Best Major Supporting Actress (A. Sabreena Farmer), Best Minor Supporting Actor (John Doyle) and Best Minor Supporting Actress (Deborah Harris).

The MAT Awards will be presented in a ceremony on September 25.

People are Talking About "A Sleeping Country"

2011-07-02T14:50:00.000-04:00

“A charming evening, a damned funny show. Fans of neurotic Woody Allen comedies will feel at home with this story of Julia and her insomnia. Like that second shot of limoncello, you know you really shouldn’t, but it’s so light, sweet and refreshing … and heck, it’s summer.” Andrew Alexander, www.ArtsCriticATL.com
“Hey people, you should all get over to The Essential Theatre and check out Megan Hayes, Matthew Myers, Holly Stevenson and Kelly Criss in A Sleeping Country, superbly directed by Peter Hardy. It's smart and funny.” Larry Davis

“Go see it! Great show last night!” Kathleen McManus

“Hope everyone in metro-Atlanta goes to see The Essential Theatre's A Sleeping Country this month. Don't miss the fine direction of Peter Hardy and his dream cast of Kelly Criss Felten, Megan Hayes, Matthew Myers and Holly Stevenson. ♥ Well done, y'all!” Yolanda Asher

"I had a great time! Awesome show!" Kylie Brown

“I think it should be a big hit.” Bill Murphey
“I saw A Sleeping Country this week at Essential Theatre. What a funny and heart warming script. A delightful cast, this one is not to be missed.” Dewayne Morgan

“A great fun show.” Michael Strauss

“Enjoyed seeing friends Matthew Myers and Megan Hayes flex their chops in the funny new Melanie Marnich comedy, A Sleeping Country. Congrats Peter Hardy, Mark Perloe and all involved.” Clifton Guterman

“As an insomniac, I heartily endorse this performance. Really nice work.” Bart Hansard
“We enjoyed A Sleeping Country at Essential Theatre and are looking forward to the next two shows in the festival this year.” Betty Mitchell

Fri. Jul 1: "A Sleeping Country" Talkback with Sleep Expert Dr. Michael Rinow

2011-06-27T22:25:00.000-04:00

Join in the brief discussion on the evaluation and treatment of sleep disorders with Dr. Michael Rinow, director of the Northside Hospital Sleep Center.

Dr. Rinow is a native of Upstate New York, Dr. Rinow received his Medical Degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He completed his Medical Residency and Pulmonary Fellowship at SUNY at Buffalo. After working as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at SUNYAB for 10 years, he was the Medical Director for the Critical Care Units and Respiratory therapy departments at a community hospital in Western NY. He moved to Atlanta in 1997 and worked as a Pulmonologist/Critical Care physician for Kaiser Permanente. He has been involved in the care of sleep medicine patients for over 30 years. He is boarded in Pulmonary Diseases, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine.

2011-06-27T17:10:00.002-04:00

JOIN OUR $13 for 13 YEARS CAMPAIGN

What do you do when you simply can't sleep?

2011-06-26T09:50:00.002-04:00

Julia Fracassi can't get to sleep. Her insomnia has ruined the relationship with her boyfriend and has made her miserable. With guidance from her friend Dr. Midge, she embarks on a hilarious journey to Venice to find answers. Come along for the journey. Learn More.

Dr. Midge's recommendations are anything but orthodox. So, we'd like to ask for your help. Please post comments with your suggestions. Dr. Midge will consider all your suggestions and offer two free tickets to any Essential Theatre Festival performance for the best advice. We need your advice prior to July 4th, so we can help Julia get a good night's sleep.

Local actor Theroun Patterson is successfully making the transition to award-winning playwright.

2011-06-16T17:49:00.000-04:00

One of the more disconcerting recent developments on the Atlanta theater scene is Theroun Patterson’s decision to stop acting, at the relatively prime age of 37. Read More

Video Interview with Essenial Theatre 2011 Playwriting Award Winner, Theroun D'Arcy Patterson

The 2011 Bare Essentials Reading Series

2011-06-07T07:01:00.000-04:00

June 13

“CITATIONS” by Josh Harmon

Directed by Barbara Hawkins-Scott

A famous and successful historian is accused of plagiarism, and all those close to her rally to her defense – except for her teenage son. By the author of “Bad Jews”, Playwright In Residence at Actor’s Express.

July 20

“A PAIN IN THE NECK” by Rachel Teagle

Directed by Dina Shadwell

Mina thinks her girlfriend might be cheating on her -- with a man, which would be bad enough, but he could also be a vampire, which would really suck. (Sorry.) This dark comedy was a finalist in the 2011 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award competition.

July 26

“MY BROTHER’S KNIFE” by Joshua Mikel

Directed by Amber Bradshaw

Wayne just wants to kill himself, but this psychotic deputy sheriff takes him prisoner, tormenting him and forcing him to play old rock and roll tunes. What is going on here? This surreal journey into the past was a finalist in the 2011 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award competition.

July 27

“THE SPINS” by Sara Crawford

Directed by Curtis Krick

Music always sounds better on vinyl, and the spinning of a record on a turntable is echoed by the drunken emotional vertigo of a young woman haunted by the death of her musician brother. Written by Creative Loafing’s Reader’s Choice for Best Local Songwriter, this play was a finalist in the 2011 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award competition.

Take Action Against High Gas Prices

2011-06-01T20:10:00.000-04:00

Buy your Essential Theatre Flex Pass and Save Even More
Get a Flex Pass between now and June 15th and in addition to the savings up to 50%, we will pay for gas. Enter the code "GAS" when you purchase your Flex Pass and you save $5.

Flex Pass FAQ

How does the Flex Pass work?
When you purchase a three, six or ten ticket Flex Pass, you can use those tickets however you wish. You can bring a big party on one night or divide your tickets across multiple performances. You can use them all for one play, or you can use your pass to see all three plays at different times.

Are all Flex Passes good for the same number of admissions? If so, what is that number?
No, you can get a Flex Pass good for 3, 6, or 10 tickets. This will be reflected both in the name of the Flex Pass and its price.

Are there restrictions on which performances the Flex Passes are good for?
There are no blackout dates or restrictions, and you can even wait until a few hours before a performance to get your tickets online. In order to redeem the tickets on your Flex Pass, you MUST reserve tickets online, however!

How do I redeem my Flex Pass for tickets to see a show?
To redeem your Flex Pass for tickets to a particular performance, simply visit OvationTix online and redeem as many tickets as you're ready to reserve at that time, up to the number of remaining tickets on your Flex Pass, of course.

What if I purchase the ten ticket Flex Pass, but I only want to reserve one or two of the tickets now?
You don't need to reserve all your tickets at a single visit. You can visit the website again to select your remaining tickets. You just use them when you need them. For example, if you buy a ten ticket Flex Pass, you can see one performance by yourself and later choose to use your remaining tickets to come back with eight friends on another night. Whenever you want, simply go online and choose up to your remaining number of tickets for whichever show you want to see.

Do I need to actually make a reservation, or can I just present my Flex Pass at the box office?
The box office is not able to redeem or sell Flex Passes directly at the time of a performance. You MUST redeem your Flex Pass online prior to arriving at the theatre. If you have difficulty, you can call OvationTix at 866.811.4111. While the box office is unable to process or sell Flex Passes at the time of the performance, you may redeem your Flex Pass up until a few hours before whatever show you'd like to attend, by logging in online.

What if I haven't used all the tickets on my Flex Pass by the time the Festival ends?
If you find you cannot use all the tickets on your Flex Pass, you can donate any remaining tickets as a tax-deductible donation by notifying us at Info@EssentialTheatre.com

Once I've bought a single ticket for a Festival show, can I later decide to buy a Flex Pass and get a refund for the regular ticket I've already purchased?
No, single tickets can't be credited to a Flex Pass once they've been purchased separately. So get your Flex Pass today and start saving!

Play Reading: CITATIONS by Joshua Elias Harmon, Monday June 13, 7:30pm

2011-06-01T20:03:00.000-04:00

CITATIONS by Joshua Elias Harmon, Actors Express Playwright in Residence, reading directed by Barbara Hawkins-Scott

Essential Theatre @ Actors Express, Monday June 13, 7:30pm

Cooper's senior year of high school turns chaotic when his mother, a major American historian, is accused of plagiarism. A play about academic honesty, Hamlet, and growing up.

Joshua Elias Harmon (Playwright) His plays include A Boy Named Alice, Bad Jews, Citations, Love in the Time of Channukah, Princess Bubonic, and a new adaptation of Emile Zola's novel Therese Raquin. His work has been produced and developed by Ars Nova, Hangar Theatre, The Lark, Prospect Theater Company, Future Tenant, and Actor's Express, where he was the 2010-2011 National New Play Network's Playwright-in-Residence. Honors include the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for ComicPlaywriting (2nd Place), a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency, Eudora Welty Foundation Fellowship, two Shubert Foundation Fellowships and a Kennedy Center Playwriting Fellowship at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference. Education: Northwestern (BA), Carnegie Mellon (MFA).
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Suggested donation $5

DaVinci's Pizzeria Supports the Arts, Now You Need to Support DaVinci's.

2011-06-01T19:57:00.000-04:00

Great Pizza, Great Theatre, It's What's Essential.

Print this coupon and take it to DaVinci's Pizzeria and 20% of your tab will be donated to support this year's Essential Theatre Festival.

The term Pizzaiolo originated in Old World Italy. In the old villages, there were many places to find pizza in the markets. But every village had one that stood out in a unique way, and generally, the person driving that shop was referred to a Pizzaiolo. Each Pizzaiolo was considered to be a master pie maker.

Nowadays, the term Pizzaiolo is loosely translated as “pizza chef”. DaVinci’s Pizzeria was founded in the tradition of the Pizzaiolo.   A Pizzaiolo was a person of integrity, respect, and humility in the community. We apply their philosophies of hard work, quality meats, and fresh produce, and adhere to the commitment that fresh does tastes best.

At Davinci’s, we strive to embody the spirit of the Pizzaiolo. We honestly do things the old fashioned way. Yes, it is a heck of a lot more work, but in the end, isn’t that what serving food is all about?

More good news for 2010 Playwriting Award Winner Gabriel Jason Dean

2011-05-24T07:20:00.002-04:00

Atlanta playwright Gabriel Jason Dean, winner of the 2010 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award for his play QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT, has won the 2011 Ken Ludwig Playwriting Scholarship, given out each year as part of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for the body of work of a student playwright. QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT was one of the plays he was honored for. The Essential Theatre congratulates Gabriel for another step in what's sure to be a great career!

TEDx: Playright Margaret Baldwin Discusses Playwriting

2011-05-02T11:12:00.000-04:00

"Assume nothing. Notice everything. Make something... happen." Playwright of Night Blooms, Margaret Baldwin, shares her creative process while dealing with questions about race, identity and human rights."

2012 Play Submission Deadline Passes, There's Always Next Year

2011-05-02T10:47:00.000-04:00

April 23 (Shakespeare’s Birthday) was the submission deadline for the 2012 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award competition. This will be the tenth year for this annual contest – the only one of its kind, exclusively dedicated to the work of Georgia playwrights. The winning play has always received a cash prize (which started out at $300, and has now gone up to $600) and a full production as part of the Essential Theatre’s annual Festival of World Premieres and Regional Premieres, plays that have never been seen in Georgia before. We’re proud of our long tradition of supporting, developing and producing the work of Georgia writers.

Over the past ten years, the number of submissions has steadily risen, and this year we received more scripts than we ever have before – 54 of them, coming from over 20 communities around the state. The winning play will be announced before the end of 2011, and will be produced in the 2012 Essential Theatre Play Festival.

In the meantime, look out for our World Premiere of 2011’s winning play – Theroun D’Arcy Patterson’s powerful family drama A THOUSAND CIRCLETS, scheduled to be performed as part of the 2011 Essential Theatre Play Festival, running from June 30 – July 31 in the Actor’s Express space, along with our Regional Premieres of Lee Blessing’s GREAT FALLS and Melanie Marnich’s A SLEEPING COUNTRY.

Choosing Plays for the Festival

2011-05-02T07:07:00.002-04:00

When I first started reading Melanie Marnich’s A SLEEPING COUNTRY, I knew that we were looking for a comedy to help round out the 2011 Essential Theatre Play Festival – or, at least, something lighter than the two fairly heavy dramas we had already decided to do (Lee Blessing’s GREAT FALLS and Theroun D’Arcy Patterson’s A THOUSAND CIRCLETS). Right from the start I was pleased with how funny A For the past thirteen years, we’ve been choosing plays to present in the Essential Theatre’s annual three-show Festival. All we do are World Premieres and Regional Premieres, bringing Atlanta what’s new. And talking about how the line-up for this year’s Festival came to be chosen will give you a pretty good idea of what the process usually is.

As you may already know, we hold an annual playwriting competition for Georgia resident playwrights – the only one of its kind. The winner of the Essential Theatre Playwriting Award is given a cash prize ($600, these days) and a full production as part of that year’s Festival. So, as often as not, choosing the prize-winning plays from the many submissions we received (over 50 last year) is the first thing we do. After all, if our Georgia-written play is, say, a study of a man falsely sent to Death Row for a murder he didn’t commit (like our 2007 winner, Jean Sterrett’s FIX ME SO I CAN STAND) or a black comedy about an astronomer who discovers that his parents are meth addicts (like 2010’s QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT, by Gabriel Jason Dean), then we’ll want to make sure we don’t do any other plays that year which remotely resemble those, either in style or subject matter.

For the upcoming 2011 Festival, our prize-winner is Theroun D’Arcy Patterson’s A THOUSAND CIRCLETS, a powerful drama about a successful African-American family in crisis. The director will be Betty Hart, who helmed our productions of JIM CROW AND THE RHYTHM DARLINGS and THE DARKER FACE OF THE EARTH. Once we had that set, we began to look for two other plays to round out the line-up.

As always, we only wanted to do plays that have not been previously performed anywhere in this part of the country. But it’s also very important to us that we present plays that we believe in, that we’re excited by, that we think make a valuable contribution to the cultural and artistic life of this community. Plays that are worth doing. Plays that you won’t see anywhere else around here, that will stay with you long after you leave the theatre.

After looking through a lot of possibilities, the first one to fall into place was Lee Blessing’s GREAT FALLS, the story of a man taking a road trip with his teenage stepdaughter … except it’s more complicated than that. She’s his EX-stepdaughter (he and her mother are divorced) and she accuses him of kidnapping her (except he didn’t, not exactly) and there’s a lot of bad stuff in the past for both of them, but not really with each other. It’s a painful love story, a journey deep into their troubled hearts, and it’s a beauty. I think Lee Blessing is maybe the most consistently fine American playwright of the past quarter century, equally proficient with comedies and dramas, like ELEEMOSYNARY and A WALK IN THE WOODS and FORTINBRAS and NICE PEOPLE DANCING TO GOOD COUNTRY MUSIC and two wonderful plays that the Essential Theatre has already produced – DOWN THE ROAD and GOING TO ST. IVES. Next season, the Aurora Theatre will be presenting his award-winning A BODY OF WATER.

Directing our production of GREAT FALLS will be my old friend Ellen McQueen, twice the winner of the Metropolitan Atlanta Theatre Award as Best Director for the Essential productions of AFTER ASHLEY and ICE GLEN (not to mention last year’s critically acclaimed SALLY AND GLEN AT THE PALACE, which was named one of the best shows of the season by both the Sunday Paper and Atlanta Theatre Buzz).

So, with GREAT FALLS and A THOUSAND CIRCLETS set for the Festival, we needed something lighter, something funny, to help balance things out. And good comedies that haven’t already been snapped up by other theatres in the Atlanta area are hard to find! But when I’d finished reading Melanie Marnich’s A SLEEPING COUNTRY I knew that this was the one I wanted to do. The story of woman who travels to Venice, Italy in search of a cure for her terrible insomnia, I was charmed by its humor and fantastical, fairy-tale flourishes, but what really sealed the deal was the beauty and wisdom of its hopeful ending. Hilarious, but also another journey deep into the human heart. I’ll be directing this one myself.

Sometimes it can take a while to find out whether you can get the rights to produce recently published plays, but we quickly got the go-ahead for GREAT FALLS and A SLEEPING COUNTRY, so everything was settled … but there was one more piece of the big picture-puzzle that we hadn’t seen yet, or even guessed at. A couple of weeks after we’d decided on the plays we’d be doing this summer, I was doing some on-line research for publicity purposes, looking up biographical material on Lee Blessing. And I came across this completely unexpected bit of information: “He is married to playwright Melanie Marnich.”

As in, Melanie Marnich, the author of A SLEEPING COUNTRY! I can’t remember the last time I’ve been so utterly flabbergasted.

So, of course, we contacted Mr. Blessing and Ms. Marnich, and told them the whole story and invited them to come down to see the Essential Theatre’s productions of their plays this July. No definite word yet, but they have very busy schedules and we’re not holding our breath … but they said they’d love to, if they can, and they haven’t said “No,” yet …!

Last summer we had the distinct honor of hosting the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Rita Dove at the opening night of our production of her classic tragedy THE DARKER FACE OF THE EARTH, and we’d be thrilled to have TWO celebrated playwrights come down for this year’s Festival (and to meet the third writer we’ll be producing this year, our prize-winner, Theroun D’Arcy Patterson).

Here’s hoping …

Peter Hardy

"Great Falls" stirs up the mysteries between love and fear

2011-04-29T06:54:00.000-04:00

I've been a fan of Lee Blessing's writing for a long time. When I saw the Essential Theatre's production of his play, "Down the Road", back in 1994, I told Peter Hardy (who directed it) that it was a play that disturbed women in ways they wanted to think about and disturbed men in ways they didn't want to think about. Blessing's plays tend to stir things up and make you think about stuff you feel, but don't usually look at.

"Great Falls" stirs up the mysteries between love and fear, men and women, youth and middle age. Think Creon and Antigone on a road trip.

It's funny and awful in the way that family is funny and awful. It's about painful separation and undeniable connection and confused loyalties and transformation or, anyway, the possibility of transformation if you're willing to go down in the dark and wrestle an angel for it, if, like Monkey Man in the play, you're willing to walk 50 miles for it.

It's my favorite of Lee Blessing's plays so far.

I can't wait to start rehearsal.

Ellen McQueen

"A Sleeping Country" Directors Notes

2011-04-26T09:22:00.000-04:00

Peter Hardy, Artistic Director

Support Essential Theatre - Buy Your Essential Flex Pass Now

2011-04-21T13:32:00.005-04:00

If you are anything like me, you wait until the last minute to decide when to see a theatre production and expect to find a discount ticket as well. We've figured out a way to offer just that. Essential Theatre's new Flex Pass gives you flexibility and discounted ticket prices while helping us raise funds before the summer festival opens. What's more, the earlier you purchase, the larger the ticket package, the greater your savings will be. Each week as the festival opening approaches, these packages will cost just a tiny bit more. Just a small twist of the arm so that you might please consider buying your tickets now. So, how does this work, keep on reading.

When you purchase a three, six or ten ticket Flex Pass you can to use those tickets however you wish. You can even have a big party or bring a small group of friends to any performance of any of the three festival plays. To redeem your FlexPass got individual tickets, you simply visit OvationTix online and you may choose one or more tickets to any performance for any of the three shows until you use up your Flex Pass tickets. And, you will not need to select all your tickets at a single visit. You just use them when you need them. For example, if you buy a ten seat Flex Pass, you can see one performance, and select to use your remaining tickets come back with eight friends on another night. Or, whenever you want simply go online and choose up to your remaining number of tickets for whichever show you want to see. There are no blackout dates or restrictions. The earlier you purchase, the greater your savings, and you can even wait until a few hours before a performance to get your tickets online.

Simply sign in at OvationTix to redeem your Flex Pass. Flex Pass tickets can only purchased online and can not be redeemed at the box office. For more information, please contact mperloe@essentialtheatre.com

Buy your Flex Pass early, you'll help Essential Theatre and save more.

Lauren Gunderson's SILENT SKY opens at South Coast Repertory

2011-04-06T13:49:00.000-04:00

And yet another new opening for Essential Theatre playwright Lauren Gunderson: SILENT SKY at South Coast Repertory in California:

“She stared at the heavens, and what she saw there changed the course of astronomy. But when Henrietta Leavitt arrives at the Harvard Observatory in the early 1900s, she isn’t allowed to touch a telescope or even express an idea. Instead, she joins a group of women “computers,” charting the stars for an astronomer who calculates projects in “girl hours” and has no time for Henrietta’s probing theories. But as she measures the light of distant stars, she must also take the measure of her life on Earth, answer questions of love, family and the hope of heaven in this exquisite new play—an homage to the beauty of the Earth and the glory of the skies.”

Congratulations to Atlanta Playwright Karla Jennings

2011-03-27T21:33:00.000-04:00

Essential Theatre playwright Karla Jennings (we produced the World Premiere of her play IMAGES IN SMOKE in 2000) has a new play that will be opening up Northern Kentucky University's Y.E.S. Festival on April 7. MONSTROUS BEAUTY is about the Teutonic drama queen and saint of Nazi kitsch, Leni Riefenstahl, one of the scariest artists of our time, who surged from dancer to Third Reich Uberfrauline to prisoner to American cultural icon. Co-starring Marlene Dietrich as the good twin, the play explores the labyrinth of personal morality and America’s disturbing embrace of an exceptionally disturbing artist.
Congratulations to Karla!

2011 Technical and Production Positions Available

2011-03-20T20:43:00.003-04:00

For information on 2011 Essential Theatre Festival, check out www.EssentialTheatre.com. For questions regarding internship and employment opportunities, contact production manager Jennifer Brown at jennifer_brown@hotmail.com.

Internships

Internships for all positions are now available for Essential Theatre's 2011 New Play Festival! Opportunities are available in marketing, fundraising, all areas of design production, and running crew. Customizable internships are also available upon request. Contact production manager Jennifer Brown at jennifer_brown@hotmail.com. Please send a resume if you have one, and indicate your area of interest. Please also list your general availability between May and July, as we have a variety of opportunities available with varying time commitments.

Stage Manager

The stage manager will be responsible for attending and running all rehearsals for the show with which they are involved and distributing rehearsal and performance reports to the production and design staff, as well as the other festival stage managers, following every rehearsal and performance. Stage manager will run lights and sound for performances as well as maintaining props and costumes during the run of the show. The stage manager is also expected to participate in strike for their show when it closes and may be asked to participate in strike for the festival after the final show’s closing performance. Stipend offered.

Production Assistant/Asst Stage Manager

Production assistants will join the festival when we move into Actor's Express and will primarily serve as an assistant to the stage manager. Responsibilities will include tracking of props backstage during the show, assisting with scene changes and costume quick changes as needed, and possibly running lights, sound, and/or projections as deemed necessary by their stage manager. Production assistants will also assist in changeover/rep responsibilities as needed. A stipend is offered for this position.

Assistant Technical Director

The ATD will report directly to the Technical Director and will assist with coordinating and creating the technical aspects of the show. Responsibilities will include carpentry and painting as well as coordinating of volunteers and interns interested in participating in these tasks. ATD must be available during the day on June 22 through opening of the final play, as well as more flexible time prior to load-in for set construction. ATD is also expected to be available for strike the final weekend in July. A stipend is offered for this position.

Lauren Gunderson, two-time winner of the Essential Theatre Playwriting Award

2011-03-15T21:29:00.002-04:00

Access Atlanta has an article on Decatur-born playwright Lauren Gunderson, whose new play "Exit, Pursued By A Bear" is currently being produced by Synchronicity. Lauren's a two-time winner of the Essential Theatre Playwriting Award. http://bit.ly/hPHGFF

General Auditions for A Thousand Circlets

2011-03-15T07:16:00.003-04:00

Date: Saturday, March 19, from Noon to 3 p.m.

Location: 1083 Austin Avenue Northeast, Atlanta, GA 30307 The Juggler’s Room in the Little Five Points Community Center (the building that Horizon Theatre is located in). It’s on the top floor, the first door on your right as you come to the top of the stairs.

Director: Betty Hart

Script: www.EssentialTheatre.com/2011_scripts.htm

"A Thousand Circlets" will be one of three productions running in repertory in the 2011 Essential Theatre Play Festival, which will run from June 30 – July 31 at Actor’s Express.

Please bring in two contrasting monologues, totaling not more than 4 minutes. We will NOT be reading from the play at this time.

Non-union casting. All roles will be stipend-paid.

All the characters are African-American.

Casting Breakdown:

Earl Leighton The family patriarch, an architect, self made, proud, on the verge of realizing a life’s ambition: to build a skyscraper, 60 yrs. old.
Liz Kensey Leighton Earl’s second wife, a retired literature professor, runs an efficient household, sharp, quite comfortable amongst the trappings of wealth; 57 yrs. old.
Caleb Leighton The eldest son, a CFO in his father’s architecture firm, a father of two, workaholic, a blunt instrument; 35 yrs. old.
Rebecca Leighton Earl’s daughter, a journalist, a wanderer, complicated, passionate, recently fired; 33 yrs old.
Grey Kensey Earl’s stepson, an architect at a small firm in New York, a bit lost, stubborn, independent to a fault; 32 yrs. old.

For appointment time: Email pmhardy@aol.com or call 404-212-0815.
Mailing Address: Essential Theatre, 1414 Foxhall Lane #10, Atlanta, GA 30316.
Website: www.EssentialTheatre.com.

Break a Leg!

2011-03-01T15:18:00.002-05:00

The Essential Theatre says BREAK A LEG! to the cast, crew (and author!) of Synchronicity Performance Group's World Premiere of Lauren Gunderson's revenge comedy, "Exit, Pursued By A Bear". Opening this Friday (March 4) in the Backstage Theatre at 7 Stages.

Lauren was the first-ever winner of the Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, back in 2001, for "Parts They Call Deep", a play that she wrote when she was just 17. She later went on to win another award from us, for her science-drama "Background", and she's been having a wonderful career ever since, getting commissions and productions all around the country.

Lauren says:

”The Essential Theatre has been fundamentally important for my career. When I was very young and unsure of how to sustain my work in theatre, they gave me strength. I speak from experience when I say that I will always credit them with my early success and confidence."

And a reminder -- the submission deadline for the 2012 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award is coming up soon, on April 23. Visit www.EssentialTheatre.com for submission guidelines.

Coming up this summer: The 2011 Essential Theatre Play Festival, featuring the Regional Premieres of Lee Blessing's "Great Falls," Melanie Marnich's "A Sleeping Country", and the World Premiere of our 2011 Award winner, Theroun D'Arcy Patterson's "A Thousand Circlets". The Festival will be running June 30 - July 31, at Actor's Express!

General Audition Announcement

2011-02-28T06:31:00.001-05:00

THE ESSENTIAL THEATRE will hold General Auditions for the 2011 Essential Theatre Play Festival.
Three full-length plays in repertory:

A SLEEPING COUNTRY by Melanie Marnich
Directed by Peter Hardy

GREAT FALLS by Lee Blessing
Directed by Ellen McQueen

A THOUSAND CIRCLETS by Theroun D’Arcy Patterson
Directed by Betty Hart

To view scripts, go to: www.EssentialTheatre.com/2011_scripts.htm
Festival runs June 30 – July 31 at Actor’s Express
Date/Time: 6 p.m. – 10 p.m. on Sunday, March 13
Location: The Juggler’s Room in the Little Five Points Community Center (the building that Horizon Theatre is located in). It’s on the top floor, the first door on your right as you come to the top of the stairs.
Address: 1083 Austin Avenue Northeast, Atlanta, GA 30307

Please bring in two contrasting monologues, totaling not more than 4 minutes. We will NOT be reading for individual plays at this time. (By “contrasting”, we mean “contrasting”. Show us you can play more than one kind of character – beyond that, it’s up to you.)
Non-union casting. All roles will be stipend-paid.

For appointment time, e-mail pmhardy@aol.com or call 404-212-0815.
Mailing Address: The Essential Theatre, 1414 Foxhall Lane #10, Atlanta, GA 30316.
Website: www.EssentialTheatre.com.

Alliance Theatre Discount Offer for Essential Friends

2011-02-25T14:14:00.000-05:00

Tony Award winner Judith Ivey directs the 2010 Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition winner, Carapace, in performances now on the Hertz Stage at the Alliance Theatre. Carapace was written by 29 year old David Mitchell Robinson and depicts a portrait of Jeff, a flawed man on a collision course with fate.

Save $5 on tickets with promo code CARAPACE5 at www.alliancetheatre.org or by calling the box office at (404) 733-5000. Carapace runs through March 6th so get your tickets today!

"The Essential Theatre recommends CARAPACE, a strong new American play by David Mitchell Robinson, beautifully produced by the Alliance Theatre with an all-Atlanta cast." Peter Hardy, Artistic Director

"...close to miraculous in every conceivable way...an almost perfect work of art. If you care about fine theatre, go see it." –Manning Harris, Atlanta InTown

Essential Theatre Seeks Volunteer Grant Writer

2011-02-15T10:14:00.000-05:00

Essenitial Theatre seeks an individual to research grants and write grant proposals for the organization. The writer would be expected to find viable grant opportunities from all sources, including but not limited to foundations; federal, state and city grants; other private charitable and philanthropic organizations. The writer would create and submit proposals and to all charitable opportunities.

Essential Theatre is very proud of its reputation for presenting high quality productions of new works including a world premiere by a Georgia Playwright. We are a 501c3 non-profit benefiting from the talents of a diverse group of participants and catering to a an equally diverse audience.

Skills

Grant Writing, Communication & Research: Be able to effectively research grants related to our mission and projects reach into the community and successfully complete the fulfillment needs of the specific grants for submission.

Atlanta Theatre Buzz's PERSON OF THE YEAR

2011-02-12T17:56:00.005-05:00

Congratulations to Kathy Manning for being named Atlanta Theatre Buzz's PERSON OF THE YEAR. We'll second that emotion!

As well as working with many different theatre companies around town, Kathy has been the Essential Theatre's Prop Mistress of the Universe for some years now, as well as serving as a Stage Manager and All-Around-Indispensible-Contributor. Here's what Atlanta Buzz had to say:

For the 2 people in Atlanta who don't know Kathy, we will give you a little background. Kathy is a true unsung hero of local theatre. There is not a person who works harder and complains less. I can't think of a person who can take control of any situation as a stage manager or production manager, and still have the respect and loyalty of everyone in a cast. I can't think of one person with a harsh word about her. She is an example to all of us in being professional, with a strong work ethic. Most of us are better for having worked in a production with her. If you see her, congratulate her and tell her that this is well deserved. In fact, it's about time!

Congratulations Artistic Director Peter Hardy is Published

2011-01-17T10:36:00.002-05:00

Essential Theatre Artistic Director Peter Hardy has had his first short story published, in the British fantasy anthology POSTSCRIPTS: THE COMPANY HE KEEPS. Hardy has sold two additional stories, and is the prize-winning author of over twenty produced plays, including SALLY AND GLEN AT THE PALACE, presented as part of the 2010 Essential Theatre Play Festival, and for which he was named the Critic’s Pick for Best Atlanta Playwright by Creative Loafing. SALLY AND GLEN was listed as one of the best theatre productions of the year by Atlanta Theatre Buzz and the Sunday Paper.

Essential Theatre Noted in The Best of 2010

2011-01-16T15:49:00.008-05:00

The Best of 2010
by Brad Rudy

Best Actor In A Play
Jacob York-Sally and Glen at the Palace (Essential)

Best Director Of A Play
Ellen McQueen-Sally and Glen at the Palace

Best Play
Peter Hardy's Sally and Glen at the Palace

Congratulations to all the other folks who got mentioned, especially friends and Essential colleagues like Spencer Stephens, Topher Payne, Jane Kroessig, Matt Felten, Bethany Ann Lind and Brad Raymond!

Dramatist Guild: Atlanta News

2011-01-08T17:34:00.005-05:00

National News: Atlanta
by Pamela Turner

When I first came to Atlanta it surprised me. I'd expected something that was a slightly urban version of Deliverance with a little dash of Scarlett's Tara thrown in. My former husband and I moved from our native Pacific North-west because of his job promotion and my resulting chance to go to grad school. He didn't like it and returned, but I stayed, mostly because of school, but also because what I found was a city with an active arts scene and some pretty cool green spaces. This kind of misconception followed by pleasant surprise was revisited on me two times this summer. The first experience was as a "playwright guest" at the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) conference and the second was as an audience member at the Essential Theatre Play Festival production of Peter Hardy's Sally and Glen at the Palace

The more recent event at Essential was surprising because it is only the second time in their twelve-year history that Hardy, who is founding Artistic Director, has included one of his own plays. Written just before the birth of Essential, Sally and Glen received an award from The New Southern Theatre Festival at the Mockingbird Public Theatre in Nashville and was produced at Theatre Southeast in Tallahassee. After that, though, Hardy turned his attention to the support and promotion of other playwrights through his Play Festival. He produces two regional premieres each year along with a full production of the Essential Theatre Playwriting Award winner. The com-petition is open to playwrights residing in Georgia who submit new work. (The 2010 winner is Gabriel Jason Dean's Qualities of Starlight.) Even with all that good karma investment, Hardy had to wrestle with the decision to put his own work front and center, ‘Cause, y'all know, despite the new call to action over self-producing, there are still a whole lotta folks holding up big signs that read "Vanity Production." Fortunately, Hardy has gotten nothing but love taps over his move and may even have set the self-production rad meter over on the plus side. Hardy says that this comic drama about two college students navigating life while working at a movie theatre is a bit of departure from his usual more "highly theatrical, surreal work," even though it is based on his own experiences. And that leads to another little surprise, because this is a fascinating side of Hardy I never knew about. Imagine that. The best news is that he responded to my notice for the next regional DG meeting by saying he would probably come because "I'm feeling more like a playwright now."

Essential Theatre was represented at WordFeast

2011-01-03T16:38:00.002-05:00

On December 12, the Essential Theatre was represented at WordFeast, an annual literary reading event that benefits the Atlanta Food Bank. Theroun D’Arcy Patterson, winner of the 2011 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award for his family drama A THOUSAND CIRCLETS, was there to read a scene from the play with Betty Hart, who will be directing the Essential Theatre’s World Premiere production this summer, as part of the Essential Theatre Play Festival (running in July and August at the Actor’s Express space).

Also performing their work at WordFeast were prize-winning writers like Pearl Cleage, Topher Payne, Melissa Green, Jon Goode and David Fulmer.

Keep an eye out – we’ll soon be announcing the other two plays to be presented in next summer’s Essential Festival!

The good news for Essential Theatre playwrights keeps coming in!

2010-12-20T19:46:00.001-05:00

Gabriel Jason Dean, winner of the 2010 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award for QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT, has another production coming up – D’ANGELICO, opening in January as part of FronteraFest in Austin, Texas.

Back in 2000, we produced the World Premiere of Atlanta writer Karla Jennings’ IMAGES IN SMOKE (named one of the Best Shows of the Year by Creative Loafing), and since then she’s gone on to score multiple awards, productions and commissions. Now she’s won the Northern Kentucky University Y.E.S. competition for her play MONSTROUS BEAUTY, which will be produced there in April, and then October will see the World Premiere of her Tea Party spoof WHACKING THE TURKEY at Denver’s And Toto Too Productions.

Lauren Gunderson won our first official Playwriting Award in 2001, for her play PARTS THEY CALL DEEP, and she too has gone on to a great career, with productions and commissions all around the country. This spring will see a Triple Rolling World Premiere of her play EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR, starting off with a March production by Atlanta’s Synchronicity Performance Group.

So, remember – keep an eye out for this summer’s World Premiere of Theroun D’Arcy Patterson’s A THOUSAND CIRCLETS, the winner of the 2011 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award. Directed by Betty Hart, it’ll be part of the 2011 Essential Theatre Play Festival, along with two Regional Premieres (soon to be announced).

Since 1999, the Essential Theatre – bringing Atlanta what’s new! And, you can support Essential Theatre's effort to bring you some great new plays by making a donation today. Your donation is Essential!

Word Feast: Food for the Body & Sou

2010-12-04T08:00:00.003-05:00

WordFeast: Food for the Body and Soul! December 13th 7:30 pm at Actors Express. The work of 2011 Playwriting Award Winner Theroun Patterson will be included.

Theroun Darcy Patterson wins 2011 Essential Playwriting Award

2010-11-26T13:56:00.001-05:00

We're proud to announce that Atlanta playwright Theroun D'arcy Patterson has been named as the winner of the 2011 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award for his script A THOUSAND CIRCLETS.

This powerful and emotional work falls into the classic tradition of the American family drama, telling the tale of an African-American clan trying to heal old wounds as they face new challenges – and just as they are poised to reach the pinnacle of their professional success, the father’s illness threatens to bring it all crashing down. The Essential Theatre Playwriting Award is the only competition of its kind, exclusively dedicated to the work of Georgia writers, and this will be the tenth year that it has been given out. As winner, Mr. Patterson will receive a cash prize of $600, and his play will be given a full production as part of the 2011 Essential Theatre Play Festival, performing next summer in the Actor's Express space. For more information on the Essential Theatre, visit www.EssentialTheatre.com.

Essential is Big Winner at the Metropolitan Theatre Awards

2010-09-27T06:53:00.001-04:00

The Essential Theatre is proud to have won five Metropolitan Theatre Awards at the MAT Ceremonies held on Sunday, Sept. 26 at the Roswell Cultural Arts Center. Our 2009 production of Joan Ackermann's ICE GLEN won the prizes for Best Director of a Play (Ellen McQueen), Best Major Supporting Actor In A Play (Jim Sarbh), Best Lighting Design for a Play (Trish Harris), and Best Scenic Design for a Play (Rob Hadaway). The Essential Theatre's World Premiere production of Vynnie Meli's JIM CROW AND THE RHYTHM DARLINGS won the award for Best Original Work.

The Essential Theatre would like to congratulate all the winners and all the nominees!

Artistic Director Peter Hardy Named Best Playwright by Creative Loafing

2010-09-23T11:48:00.001-04:00

As artistic director of Essential Theatre, PETER HARDY has been Atlanta's de facto midwife of new local plays. In the summer of 2010, however, Hardy put the spotlight on his own script, Sally and Glen at the Palace, and the nostalgic dramedy packed enough punch to upstage many of Essential's productions going back for years. www.essentialtheatre.com

Will the Essential Theatre ever be eligible for the Suzis?

2010-09-19T11:28:00.000-04:00

The Essential Theatre would like to congratulate some of our friends and collaborators on their recent Suzi nominations:

Robin Bloodworth, nominated as Best Leading Actor for "Ethan Frome" at Theatre in the Square, worked with us years ago in a terrific Lee Blessing play called "Down the Road".

Ellen McQueen, nominated as Best Featured Actress for "Ethan Frome", directed our productions of "Sally and Glen at the Palace", "Ice Glen", "After Ashley", "Night Travels", "Charm School" and "A Lovely Undertow".

William S. Murphey, nominated as Best Featured Actor for "Around the World In 80 Days" at Theatrical Outfit, appeared in the very first Essential Theatre production, years ago -- a double bill of "Witches Brew" and "Ghost Story", and later in "And They Dance Real Slow In Jackson".

Will the Essential Theatre ever be eligible for the Suzis? You can help us make that happen by making a donation! It's all about the size of our budget, so why not become a financial supportor of the Essential Theatre today?

Congratulations Gabriel Dean and Peter Hardy

2010-08-17T15:11:00.002-04:00

More great news about the recently finished 2010 Essential Theatre Festival: Our production of Peter Hardy's SALLY AND GLEN AT THE PALACE was named by the Sunday Paper as one of the Top Shows of the Season, and Gabriel Jason Dean's QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT, winner of the 2010 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, has been chosen by the Duel Theatre of New York City for a production this fall, running Nov. 12 - 26. Congratulations to Gabriel and thanks to everyone who made this year's Festival our best ever!

More Comments

2010-07-26T07:21:00.001-04:00

Monday Night, July 26 at 8 p.m. in the Actor's Express space, it's donate-what-you-can (cash only) Industry Night for the Essential Theatre's Georgia Premiere of Peter Hardy's award-winning play SALLY AND GLEN AT THE PALACE, directed by Ellen McQueen (ICE GLEN) and starring Jacob York and Kate Graham.

“Peter Hardy’s Sally and Glen at the Palace is a lovely valentine to the movies, a trivia buff’s dream and a sweet, coming-of-age story about friendships made in unlikely places. You have to admire Hardy’s delicate approach and the winning performances of Kate Graham (Sally) and Jacob York (Glen). York is a wonderful comic actor who ultimately reveal his character’s tenderness and vulnerability ... Graham and York are two young performers to watch.”
Wendell Brock, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“An intimate, unassuming two-character romance about 1970’s college students who work at a movie theater, Sally and Glen at the Palace is ... warmly realized by director Ellen McQueen and co-stars Jacob York and Kate Graham ... written (so well) by Peter Hardy. On either side of the stage, illuminated displays of ever-changing posters ingeniously establish the period setting ... the thoughtful and sensitive performances by York and Graham [prove] that bigger doesn’t always mean better.”
Bert Osborne, Sunday Paper

Your Comments on "Qualities of Starlight" by Gabriel Jason Dean

2010-07-24T16:39:00.003-04:00

The World Premiere of Gabriel Jason Dean’s QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT, directed by Peter Hardy for the Essential Theatre Play Festival. Featuring Patricia French, Daniel Burnley, Matt Felten, Kelly Criss, Alex Van and Nina Kyle.

Visit www.EssentialTheatre.com for dates and times for this production.

"A work of great imagination which is directed by Peter Hardy, superbly acted and wonderfully set … it is a terrific show and an enjoyable evening, one you do not want to miss." Bob Heller, Publishers Feature Syndicate

"The performance was amazing wonderful and so dang funny. We really enjoyed it." Joan Punkett, Community Events Coordinator, VSA Arts of Georgia

"The set design was fantastic – like walking into a living yard sale – all the details, from the scummy refrigerator to the rubber chicken and the prayer hands were priceless. The Elvis soundtrack was a nice touch – his music has always had a hint of sadness mixed in with the upbeat rhythms and fun lyrics, mirroring what was going on stage really well. I can’t say enough about the cast, especially Patti French – they made that family come alive (and that lizard!) Great work Essential Theatre!" Hannah Leatherbury, Program Director, Individual Artist Services, Southern Arts Federation

"Saw the third play, QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT, at the Essential Theatre Play Festival. Lovely play with great ideas, poetics, humor, a suppy of meth, a "cool" ghost and a rockin' lizard!" James Beck

"I thought the script was great and Daniel Burnley just blew me away." Barbara Hawkins

What People are Saying about Essential's Productions

2010-07-18T08:39:00.003-04:00

Darker Face of the Earth
by Rita Dove, directed by Betty Hart
The Georgia Premiere of a stunning tragic drama by a Pulitzer Prize-winning African-American poet (and former Poet Laureate of the United States). The classic story of Oedipus is re-imagined on a slave plantation in the American South.
Adult situations, with some violence. VIDEO

"A luminous choreopoem that shows off the strengths of a strong supporting ensemble …A scintillating meditation on the shifting balance of power between master and servant, husband and wife, “The Darker Face of the Earth” transports the mythology of classical literature to the landscape of the Old South, which cultivated its own imitative and monumental style of Greek architecture, romance, heroism and war.... Replete with a chorus, soothsayers, dreams and symbols … A commendable job of displaying Dove's glorious gift for language and storytelling."
Wendell Brock, Atlanta Journal Constitution

"For those of you lucky enough to be seeing THE DARKER FACE OF THE EARTH tonight, you are in for a treat! I saw the preview - and was mesmerized ... ensemble, direction, movement, musc, story, staging and set, lighting."
Jackie Scott Prucha

"I was mesmerized. Everyone needs to see it!"
Yolanda Asher

"Saw two fine pieces of theatre this weekend that both happened to be great tragedies: King Lear at Georgia Shakespeare and THE DARKER FACE OF THE EARTHh at the Essential Theatre."
Joe Gfaller

"I thoroughly enjoyed THE DARKER FACE OF THE EARTH at Essential Theatre last week. Sweeping, stirring. Betty Hart directed a wonderful production."
Vynnie Meli

Sally and Glen at the Palace
by Peter Hardy, directed by Ellen McQueen
The Georgia Premiere of a comic drama about the growing friendship between two very different college students working together in the lobby of a 1970s movie theatre in a southern university town. Winner of a New Southern Theatre Festival Playwriting Award. VIDEO

"Peter Hardy has given us a touching and intimate work that's an absolute must for cinephiles! Ellen McQueen directed this production brought to life by Kate Graham and Jacob York. Kudos to you all! And thank you, Peter."
Scott Poythress, Actor

"Playwright Peter Hardy's script was wonderful, the acting was superb. So funny and poignant in the first act. So poignant and more serious in the second. I left with a big smile and one tear. I'm going to see it again later in the run."
Letitia Sweitzer

"This show is elegantly written -- touching and smart. I saw it once on my own, I plan to bring my wife to it again."
Hank Kimmel

"Sally and Glen at the Palace" by Peter Hardy, part of Essential Theatre's Play festival was just great! The acting is A+ and the staging wonderful. And a terrific script that will make you laugh and move you. So, treat yourself to a terrific play."
James Beck

"An excellent play! Bittersweet, and true."
Ann Neff

"I was very impressed with the writing, performances and direction. The evolving relationship between Sally and Glen is funny, moving and poignant. It had me laughing and crying. If you're a film buff, then you'll really appreciate all the references and comments about the films at the Palace in the 70's. "Sally and Glen at the Palace" deserves a longer run. I hope theatres in Atlanta and across the country will consider adding it to their season."
Yolanda Asher

"It's a good-hearted show with a light touch that spins into something surprisingly tender and profound at the end, it moves fast, and if you're a film buff (especially of '70s films) you'll be in paradise. Clever set and direction and solid acting, too."
Karla Jennings

WABE's Lois Reitzes interviews Rita Dove about "Darker Face of the Earth"

2010-07-11T22:00:00.001-04:00

Former US Poet Laureate Rita Dove was in town at a reception for the Atlanta premiere of her play, Darker Face of the Earth. Essential Theatre Company is performing the work at Actors' Express.

The play is a re-telling of Oedipus, the classic Greek tragedy in which a king tries unsuccessfully to avoid his fate, of killing his father and marrying his own mother. Dove's play takes place on a slave plantation in the American South. Recently, WABE's Lois Reitzes spoke with Rita Dove about the play. She began by asking: Why Oedipus?

Listen Now

Historical Notes on "Darker Face of the Earth"

2010-07-11T09:42:00.001-04:00

The Trials of Girlhood

Could Slaves Read and Write

House versus Field Slaves

South Carolina

A Slaveholder's Daughter

Slaves and Music

The Trials Of Girlhood – excerpt from Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
During the first years of my service in Dr. Flint's family, I was accustomed to share some indulgences with the children of my mistress. Though this seemed to me no more than right, I was grateful for it, and tried to merit the kindness by the faithful discharge of my duties. But I now entered on my fifteenth year--a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import. I tried to treat them with indifference or contempt. The master's age, my extreme youth, and the fear that his conduct would be reported to my grandmother, made him bear this treatment for many months. He was a crafty man, and resorted to many means to accomplish his purposes. Sometimes he had stormy, terrific ways, that made his victims tremble; sometimes he assumed a gentleness that he thought must surely subdue. Of the two, I preferred his stormy moods, although they left me trembling. He tried his utmost to corrupt the pure principles my grandmother had instilled. He peopled my young mind with unclean images, such as only a vile monster could think of. I turned from him with disgust and hatred. But he was my master. I was compelled to live under the same roof with him--where I saw a man forty years my senior daily violating the most sacred commandments of nature. He told me I was his property; that I must be subject to his will in all things. My soul revolted against the mean tyranny. But where could I turn for protection? No matter whether the slave girl be as black as ebony or as fair as her mistress. In either case, there is no shadow of law to protect her from insult, from violence, or even from death; all these are inflicted by fiends who bear the shape of men. The mistress, who ought to protect the helpless victim, has no other feelings towards her but those of jealousy and rage. The degradation, the wrongs, the vices, that grow out of slavery, are more than I can describe. They are greater than you would willingly believe. Surely, if you credited one half the truths that are told you concerning the helpless millions suffering in this cruel bondage, you at the north would not help to tighten the yoke. You surely would refuse to do for the master, on your own soil, the mean and cruel work which trained bloodhounds and the lowest class of whites do for him at the south.

Could Slaves Read and Write?
For many slaves, the ability to read and write meant freedom—if not actual, physical freedom, then intellectual freedom—to maintain relationships amongst family members separated by the slave trade. A few wrote slave narratives, which, when published, powerfully exposed the evils of slavery. For slaves and their teachers, the exercise of reading and writing was a dangerous and illegal one. In most southern states, anyone caught teaching a slave to read would be fined, imprisoned, or whipped. The slaves themselves often suffered severe punishment for the crime of literacy, from savage beatings to the amputation of fingers and toes.

Although some masters did teach their slaves to read as a way to Christianize them, most slave owners believed that teaching such skills was useless, if not dangerous. They assumed that slaves had no use for reading in their daily lives, and that literacy would make them more difficult to control, and more likely to run away.

For those who managed to become literate and escape to freedom, the ability to write would spark the growth of a powerful genre of literature: the slave narrative.

House versus field slave
Well it seems to me that there is a parallel that is emerging called plantation politics: the politics of the slaves in the field were often different from the politics of the slave who got to sleep in the Big House–I mean White House. You see the slaves on larger plantations who worked in the field would often direct their angst toward the big house where their master lived. So it posed a dichotomy of loyalty when the master would artfully pick a slave to work in the big house. This slave who once was from the field, was now working in the place where their anger had once been directed, and the ultimate question is where do their loyalties lie.

It’s not a hard stretch of the imagination to believe what a quandry the slaves in the house were facing. Realize now that often times they received better food, and a better place to sleep, even better clothing, they were no longer toiling in the hot sun doing back-breaking work during the summer months, and they were protected from the elements during the winter months. The house Negro had to deal with where their loyalties lie.

But the field Negroes–ohhhh, the field Negroes–they knew where their loyalties lay. They were beholden to God and to themselves and each other. They knew where to direct their anger, it was usually at the white man who would stand on the veranda and look out over the plantation, over the legalized and systemitized economy that kept them in bondage. Whether or not their master was a fair one (and fair by what standards) or not, the master was still overseeing and actively participating in what was keeping them in bondage.

South Carolina
Slave owners had more control over the state government of South Carolina than of any other state, blending aristocratic traditions with democracy. South Carolina's plantation owners played the role of English aristocrats more than the planters of other states, whereas newer Southern states, such as Alabama and Mississippi, allowed more political equality among whites. Although all white male residents were allowed to vote, property restrictions for office holders were higher in South Carolina than in any other state. South Carolina had the only state legislature where slave owners had the majority of seats. It was the only state where the legislature elected the governor, all judges and state electors. The state's chief executive was a figurehead who had no authority to veto legislative law.

The majority of the population in South Carolina was black, and overwhelmingly enslaved: by 1860 the population of the state was 703,620, with 57 percent or slightly more than 402,000 classified as enslaved African Americans. Free blacks numbered slightly less than 10,000. Unlike Virginia, where most of the plantations and slaves were concentrated in the eastern part of the state, in South Carolina plantations and slaves were common throughout most of the state. After 1794, Eli Whitney's cotton gin allowed cotton plantations to grow throughout South Carolina. By 1830, 85 percent of inhabitants of rice plantations along the coast were slaves. When rice planters left the malarial low country for cities such as Charleston, up to 98 percent of the low country residents were slaves. By 1830, two-thirds of South Carolina's counties had populations with 40 percent or more enslaved; in the two counties with the lowest rates of slavery, 23 percent of the population were slaves.

The white minority in South Carolina felt more threatened than in other parts of the South, and reacted more to the economic Panic of 1819, the Missouri Controversy of 1820, and attempts at emancipation in the form of the Ohio Resolutions of 1824 and the American Colonization Petition of 1827. South Carolina's first attempt at nullification occurred in 1822, when South Carolina adopted a policy of jailing foreign black sailors at South Carolina ports. This policy violated a treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States, but South Carolina defied a complaint from Britain through American Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and a United States Supreme Court justice's federal circuit decision condemning the jailings. Foreign blacks from Santo Domingo previously communicated with Vesey's conspirators, and the South Carolina state Senate declared that the need to prevent insurrections was more important than laws, treaties or constitutions.

A SLAVEHOLDER'S DAUGHTER: Kearney, Belle, 1863-1939
The South was in its glory. It was very rich and very proud. Its wealth consisted of slaves and plantations. Its pride was masterful from a consciousness of power. The customs of society retained the color of older European civilization, although the affairs of state were conducted according to the ideals of a radical democracy. Its social structure was simple, homogeneous. Three castes existed. The slave-holders constituted the gentry. Generally, those of this class served in the legislatures, studied law, medicine, theology; conducted extensive mercantile enterprises and controlled their private finances, - seeking recreation in hunting, traveling, entertaining, and in the cultivation of the elegant pursuits that most pleased their particular turn of mind.

The life of the great landowners and slaveholders resembled that of the old feudal lords. The overseer stood between the master and the slave in matters of detail. He conducted the local business of the plantation, managed the negroes, and was the possessor of almost unlimited power when the less serious-minded planter preferred his pleasures to his duties. The middle class carried on the concerns of commerce and the trades incident to a vast agricultural area, and were the men of affairs in its churches and municipalities. The third class constituted a yeomanry, - small farmers who, for the most part, preempted homesteads on the poorer lands, sometimes owning a few slaves, and who lived in a world of their own, - the westward drift from the Atlantic seaboard and the Blue Ridge mountains, with an inherited tone of life that defied change until the public school, of post-bellum origin, began its systematic inroads on the new generation.

Ladies of wealth and position were surrounded by refinements and luxury. They had their maids and coachmen and a retinue of other servants. There was a time-honored social routine from which they seldom varied; a decorous exchange of visits, elaborate dinings and other interchanges of dignified courtesies. Every entertainment was punctilious, strongly suggestive of colonial gatherings. No young woman went out unchaperoned. Marriage was the ultimatum of her existence and was planned for from the cradle by interested relatives. When the holy estate had been entered, women glided gracefully into the position of the most honored occupant of the home and kept their trust faithfully, making devoted wives and worshipful mothers.

The popular delusion is that the ante-bellum Southern woman, like Christ's lilies, "toiled not." Though surrounded by the conditions for idleness she was not indolent after she became the head of her own household. Every woman sewed, often making her own dresses; the clothing of all the slaves on a plantation was cut and made by negro seamstresses under her direct supervision, even the heavy coats of the men; she ministered personally to them in cases of sickness, frequently maintaining a well managed hospital under her sole care. She was a most skillful housekeeper, though she did none of the work with her own hands, and her children grew up around her knees; however, the black "mammy " relieved her of the actual drudgery of child-worry.

The women of the South, in the main, realized their obligations and met them with reflective efficiency. Notwithstanding their apparent freedom from responsibility and their outward lightness of character, there was the deepest undertone of religious enthusiasm pervading their natures; and this saving grace has clung to the Southerners through all their changing fortunes. They are the most devout people in this nation to-day. Among them is found less infidelity, - fewer "isms" have crept into their orthodoxy. As they have remained the most purely Anglo-Saxon, so have they continued the most reverent. The army of governesses and public school teachers was made up of gentlewomen of reduced means, the large middle class, and of women from the North. Teaching, sewing and keeping boarders were about the only occupations open to women of that day by which they could obtain a livelihood.

Slaves and music
African American work songs originally developed in the era of slavery, between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Because they were part of an almost entirely oral culture they had no fixed form and only began to be recorded as the era of slavery came to an end after 1865. The first collection of African American 'slave songs' was published in 1867 by William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, Lucy McKim Garrison. Many had their origins in African song traditions, and may have been sung to remind the slaves of home, while others were instituted by the slave masters to raise morale and keep slaves working in rhythm. They have also been seen as a means of withstanding hardship and expressing anger and frustration through creativity or covert verbal opposition.

A common feature of African American songs was the call-and-response format, where a leader would sing a verse or verses and the others would respond with a chorus. This came from African traditions of agricultural work song and found its way into the spirituals that developed once slaves began to convert to Christianity and from there to both gospel music and the blues. Also evident were field hollers, shouts, and moans, which may have been originally designed for different bands or individuals to locate each other and narrative songs that used folk tales and folk motifs, often making use of homemade instruments. In early slavery drums were used to provide rhythm, but they were banned in later years because of the fear that black slaves would use them to communicate in a rebellion, nevertheless slaves managed to generate percussion and percussive sounds, using other instruments or their own bodies. Perhaps surprisingly, there are very few examples of work songs linked to cotton picking.

What people are saying about "Darker Face of the Earth"

2010-07-09T12:15:00.004-04:00

"Very fine performance of the “Darker Face of the Earth.” Very strong cast and well produced."
Joe Bankoff, President and CEO of The Woodruff Arts Center

"The scope of this play is large, and the execution is sharp. This play is engaging theatrically, visually, historically and spiritually. Essential always puts on a good show, and this may be its most awe-some yet. I hope this play gets the kind of turnout it deserves. Congrats to Peter, Betty, Essential and the outstanding cast!"
Hank Kimmel, Board Chair, Working Title Playwrights

"A very well acted piece. I especially liked the actress playing Phoebe. This concept of Oedipus made the story more real than any production I've ever seen."
Barbara Hawkins-Scott, Director, Actor

"I was mesmerized. Everyone needs to see it!"
Yolanda Asher, Actor

"For those of you lucky enough to be seeing "The Darker Face of the Earth" tonight, you are in for a treat! I saw the preview - and was mesmerized ... ensemble, direction, movement, music, story, staging, set and lighting"
Jackie Scott Prucha, Actor

"Beautifully written, beautifully performed. The rhythms, music, poetry, timing. . . wonderful performances and production."
Lynne Ashe

Congratulations to our Metropolitan Atlanta Theatre Awards nominees

2010-07-01T15:24:00.004-04:00

The Essential Theatre has done pretty well with the Metropolitan Atlanta Theatre Awards over the past few years -- getting lots of nominations and some wins, including two for Best Direction of a Play (Dina Shadwell for FIX ME SO I CAN STAND and Ellen McQueen for AFTER ASHLEY), Best Actor in a Play (Spencer Stephens for FIX ME SO I CAN STAND) and Best Supporting Actor in a Play (Bobby Labartino for MRS. BOB CRATCHIT'S WILD CHRISTMAS BINGE). This year we're proud to say we've got nine nominations all told -- for two of the productions in last summer's Essential Theatre Play Festival, ICE GLEN and JIM CROW AND THE RHYTHM DARLINGS:

Major Supporting Actor
Jim Sarbh - "Denby" - ICE GLEN
Daniel Burnley - "Policeman" - JIM CROW AND THE RHYTHM DARLINGS

Major Supporting Actress
Ann Wilson - "Dulce Bainbridge" - ICE GLEN

Costume Design
Jane Kroessig - ICE GLEN

Set Design
Rob Hadaway - ICE GLEN

Lighting Design
Trish Harris - ICE GLEN

Sound Design
Thom Jenkins - JIM CROW AND THE RHYTHM DARLINGS

Moira Thornett Director's Award
Ellen McQueen - ICE GLEN

Best Overall Performance of a Play
ICE GLEN

Best Original Work
Vynnie Meli for JIM CROW AND THE RHYTHM DARLINGS

Congratulations and thanks to all our nominees! And come see this year's Essential Theatre Play Festival, running July 8 - August 8 at Actor's Express! The lineup:

THE DARKER FACE OF THE EARTH by Rita Dove, Directed by Betty Hart
SALLY AND GLEN AT THE PALACE by Peter Hardy, Directed by Ellen McQueen
QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT by Gabriel Jason Dean, Directed by Peter Hardy

Stop the Gusher, Be an Usher

2010-06-29T18:58:00.001-04:00

Become an Usher

We are seeking two ushers for each performance. Please visit our online Theatre Festival Usher Calendar to determine performance dates and availability. Click HERE to volunteer.

Essential Evening with Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet Laureate Rita Dove

2010-06-29T18:43:00.002-04:00

Essential Theatre presents "Darker Face of the Earth" by Rita Dove, directed by Betty Hart, opening night reception with Pulitzer Prize Winner, Former U.S. Poet Laureate, playwright Rita Dove.

Regional Premiere - This stunning tragic drama takes the ancient Greek legend of Oedipus and re-imagines it on a slave plantation in the American South.

Ms. Dove's books will be available before the performance and during intermission for sale by A Cappella Books. Ms. Dove will be available after the performance for a book signing.

July 8th, 2010
VIP Reception 7 pm
Performance 8 pm

Essential Theatre @ Actors Express
887 W. Marietta St.
Atlanta, GA 30318

Tickets ~ $28 per person in advance/$30 at the door for the VIP Reception
$18 General Admission in advance $20 at the door.
Box Office: http://EssentialTheatre.tix.com/ or call 800.595.4849

Notes on SALLY AND GLENN AT THE PALACE by Peter Hardy

2010-06-23T14:24:00.003-04:00

Film critic Pauline Kael proposed that the real Golden Age of American Movies was not the much-heralded 1940s, but instead the long decade of the 1970s, when a kind of freewheeling creativity and an explosion of new voices and impulses were unleashed. American film suddenly revealed more varieties of stories, more unconventional talents, more dialogue with foreign film and forbidden subject-matter than ever before. In Peter Hardy’s Sally and Glen at the Palace, pop movie culture does not coarsen the mind and emotions, but creates a conduit for the most delicate moments of (imperfect) communication. Peter Hardy’s young heroine and hero--battered, puzzled, and tentatively brave—find in the movies that whirl through the local movie palace a whole new vocabulary with which they can explore and share their most vulnerable truth—their unsure steps on the path of growing up.
Michael Evenden, Associate Professor Theatre Studies, Emory University

Notes on QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT by Gabriel Jason Dean

2010-06-23T14:13:00.004-04:00

Starlight plays tricks with time: while we feel the stars are timeless, and name them after gods, science tells us that they are actually time-bound, that—counter-intuitively--the light that shines on us bears a specific history, and tells us about the nature and origin of things. Gabriel Jason Dean‘s Qualities of Starlight lives in this mystery: we follow a scientist who has learned that creation is forever beginning again (upending easy ideas of origins and consequences, doom and possibilities)--even as he journeys to encounter his family past, but finds there nothing but the unexpected. Science crashes violently into nature, identities shift, memories speak, and the future can only be won by renegotiating the past. In this light, the cosmos is no more wondrous than a troubled human family improvising its path into the future.
Michael Evenden, Associate Professor Theatre Studies, Emory University

Notes from Betty

2010-06-14T06:53:00.002-04:00

I am especially pleased with how hard working and talented the cast of Darker Face of the Earth is. They are a collective pleasure to work with and they make me laugh every rehearsal--I love laughing and NO it's not a comedy; we just like to have a good time!
Betty Hart

Darker Face of the Earth
by Rita Dove
directed by Betty Hart
preview July 7, 2010
opens July 8, 2010

Essential Theatre Cooking Class.

2010-06-10T14:32:00.002-04:00

Why take a gourmet cooking class from a kitchen & bath remodeler? David Sturm,
Certified Kitchen and Bath Remodeler & Professional Chef knows kitchens inside and out — literally.For 10 years David spent his career as a chef working for restaurant companies such as Pano and Paul’s of the Buckhead Life Restaurant Group and Trotter’s of the Liberty House Restaurant Corporation.

“When I was 27, I decided to expand my culinary talent & even trained under a sushi chef and began teaching in-home sushi classes.” While with the Liberty House Corporation David was trained in Italian sauces, and found ways to include them in easy to make meals at home.

Today, David demonstrates the functionality of his kitchen designs & remodels by instructing how to prepare gourmet meals for homeowners in their newly remodeled kitchen. And now, he is happy to pull out his chef’s hat to teach you some basic to intermediate tips in gourmet preparation in support of The Essential Theatre.

Value: $50 per person
Up to six people per class

Visit www.EssentialTheatre.com to learn about our Wine & Words, An Essential Evening of Wine, Georgia Playwrights & more!

2010-06-08T21:53:00.001-04:00

Thanks to our wine sponsor Ansley Wine Merchants

2010-06-05T13:23:00.001-04:00

I'm writing because I am involved in a very exciting fundraiser. You all know that I love theater. Right now, more than ever, theater's are struggling terribly. In tough times, the arts are considered a luxury. But we all know that we can't exist without art. I'm doing my part to make sure that theater in Atlanta survives and thrives! Join me!

Ansley Wine Merchants will be the wine sponsor for the Essential Theatre's first big fundraiser "Wine and Words: An Essential Evening of Georgia Wines and Playwrights". On Sunday, June 27th, one of my favorite theatre companies in Atlanta will be at the Four Seasons, performing for you! This event, with food, service and space donated by the Four Seasons Hotel - will feature an auction, raffle, wine tasting and many performances from this years Essential Theatre Festival! A repertory of three plays, the annual festival is known for finding new amazing artists - playwrights, actors and more. Get to know Essential while enjoying wines from all over the United States - and featuring several Georgia wineries including Tiger Mountain, Wolf, and Frogstown - as well as other regional wineries like Biltmore Estates.

Go to www.EssentialTheatre.com to purchase tickets and to learn more about Essential Theatre!

Amber Bradshaw

2010-2011 Actors Express Season Announced

2010-06-05T13:19:00.002-04:00

I want to congratulate Actor’s Express for what looks to be a really interesting 2010-2011 Season. Lots of great choices!

I’m always glad to see one of David Hare’s plays produced here in Atlanta – I think he’s one of the greatest playwrights working today, and the Express production of THE JUDAS KISS should be something to see. Twenty-five years ago I directed Hare’s play KNUCKLE and it’s still a favorite theatre memory of mine – with a cast that featured past and present Atlanta actors like Ann Wilson, Simon Reynolds, Scott Higgs and (my dear old dad) William Hardy.

SEE WHAT I WANNA SEE is a complex and fascinating new musical that we thought about trying to do at the Essential (but decided we just didn’t have the resources to do a musical yet). I’m excited that I’ll be getting a chance to see it at the Express.

And finally, hats off to our old pal Lee Nowell, whose play ALBATROSS will receive its World Premiere at the Express next fall. Lee directed six productions for the Essential Theatre, going all the way back to our first Festival, in 1999, when she helmed Paula Vogel’s DESDEMONA, A PLAY ABOUT A HANDKERCHIEF. She’s been really coming along as a playwright in recent years, and kudos to the Express for producing her work.

The Essential Theatre is proud to be performing at Actor’s Express this summer, coming back for our second year in the space, with the 2011 Essential Theatre Play Festival!

For more information and to purchase a season subscription to Actor's Express visit them at www.ActorsExpress.com

Your Input is Essential

2010-05-19T07:16:00.002-04:00

We’re about to start rehearsals for this summer’s 2010 Essential Theatre Play Festival, and we’ve got lots of plans for marketing and reaching out to new audiences – but we can always use some new ideas. Here’s a rundown of some of the angles, story elements and subject matter that we’re dealing with this summer, and I’d like to know if anyone has suggestions about ways we might leverage these to reach out to particular groups, organizations or audience segments (with offers for group sales, or cross promotion, or whatever!). We’d also be interested in arranging for talkback sessions, etc.

If you have the chance to look over this material and it gives you any ideas, please E-mail Me! . We’d appreciate it!

Rita Dove’s THE DARKER FACE OF THE EARTH is a poetic tragedy that takes the Greek legend of Oedipus (born under a curse that he will grow up to murder his father and marry his mother) and transposes it to a slave plantation in the American south. The author is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and a former Poet Laureate of the United States. We will be bringing her to Atlanta for the July 8 opening of her play. We hope to reach out to those interested in African-American culture and history, classical literature and contemporary African-American literature, and poetry in general.

My play SALLY AND GLEN AT THE PALACE is about the friendship of two college students working in the lobby of a movie theatre in 1973. It is full of the love of movies from that period, and memories of a time of single-screen movie houses whose atmosphere was very different from the multi-plexes of today. We’d love to reach out to lovers of movies everywhere, as well as those concerned with the issues of date rape and sexual abuse.

Gabriel Dean’s QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT is the world premiere of a play about a noted young astronomer who comes back to his childhood home in the mountains of northern Georgia for the first time in several years, to discover that his parents have become addicted to crystal meth. It’s a dark comedy about serious issues, and we’d like to reach out to groups concerned with drug addiction as well as to astronomers and all those interested in the stars.

Please visit our Wine & Words, An Essential Evening of Georgia Wines, Playwrights and more! website or make a silent auction donation.

Peter

Great Things are Happening for Essential Theatre Playwrights

2010-05-11T11:50:00.003-04:00

Lots of great things are happening for Essential Theatre playwrights. Our friend Karla Jennings recently won the 2010 John Gassner Award for her play MONSTROUS BEAUTY, a riff on the life and times of the notorious Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. This national prize was initiated in 1967 to recognize outstanding new work by American writers. Her play will receive a cash prize and a staged reading in New York City.

Karla was one of the first Georgia playwrights whose work we produced – back in 2000, when our production of her play IMAGES IN SMOKE was named one of the best 15 shows of the year by Creative Loafing. She’s been going great guns since then, co-founding the Atlanta group Working Title Playwrights in 2001, and that same year seeing a workshop production of her play DISH BABIES at the Two Roads Theater in Los Angeles, where it was nominated for three ADA awards. She was also awarded the Hermann Kesten Fellowship to have her play CLAY’S WAR presented at an international writers’ conference in Germany. THE RUBY VECTOR was chosen for development at the prestigious Lark Theatre in New York City, and won the 2005 Playwrights First Award. An earlier one-act version of this play had originally been commissioned by Georgia Tech’s DramaTech Theatre. More recently, Karla’s play THE SMILES won the Pillars Playwriting Prize and was given a workshop production at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville.

Karla says: “Essential’s faith in playwrights strengthens their faith in themselves, which keeps them writing. Essential Theatre helps Georgia speak for itself.”

Lauren Gunderson won the Essential Theatre Playwriting Award in 2001, for PARTS THEY CALL DEEP, written when she was just 17 – we like to think we discovered her. A few years later she won again, for her play BACKGROUND, but she’s been having a fantastic career all over the U.S.A., with so many productions and commissions we haven’t been able to keep track of them all. Here are some of the recent highlights:

Last summer she was in residence at the Eugene O’Neill Center’s National Playwrights Conference, developing her play FIRE WORK with director Sean Daniels (formerly Artistic Director of Atlanta’s Dad’s Garage Theater). This year she’s been commissioned by the Kennedy Center’s Performances for Young Audiences group to write two new science-themed plays for youth, and she has also become the first-ever Playwright In Residence at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, California. Last year her play EMILIE: LA MARQUISE DU CHATELET DEFENDS HER LIFE TONIGHT was produced at California’s South Coast Repertory, and it’s now being published by Samuel French.

Coming up soon, Lauren’s play (EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR) will be featured in the Playwright’s Foundation Rough Readings Series in San Francisco, and right here in Atlanta on May 25 as part of Synchronicity Theatre’s SheWRITES Play Reading Festival. Also in Atlanta, her play DENISE² will be workshopped at Actor’s Express as part of the TURNER IN THE WORKS Series, on June 7.

Lauren writes: “The professionalism with which the Essential Theatre handled my work and delivered a beautiful performance allowed me entrance into the world of playwriting. It was an honor to work with them and a huge boost for my work to have won the Playwriting prize.”

And hey, how about Gabriel Dead, winner of this year’s Essential Award for his play QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT? Gabriel has such a big summer coming up that he won’t even be able to be here for the opening night of our production of his play – he’ll be working on another script of his, THE FREEMAN ELEGIES, in a residency at the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, New York. Then he’ll be attending a week-long residency at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut. Plus, his short play PIGSKIN will be performed as part of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival this summer!

New Honors for Playwright Gabriel Jason Dean

2010-05-07T13:02:00.002-04:00

I thought you guys would appreciate knowing this. One of my short plays, PigSkin, was accepted to the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival this summer in July. YAY! The week before QOS opens.

Then, as if that wasn't enough good news, I got offered a residency at the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca NY to work on my new play The Freeman Elegies. Then, I'm going to the O'Neill for a week long residency.

I'm feeling pretty darn good today!

Cheers,

~Gabriel Jason Dean

Essential Theatre Play Development

2010-05-07T12:02:00.005-04:00

One of the Essential Theatre’s most important goals has always been the production and encouragement of new plays by Georgia writers. Ever since our first annual Festival in 1999, we’ve been committed to the production of at least one World Premiere a year by a Georgia playwright, which led us to institute the annual Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, the only such competition exclusively dedicated to new works by writers from this state.

Along with producing fourteen World Premieres since then, we’ve done some work developing new plays, holding private and public readings and offering consultation to playwrights. Although production remains our primary goal, we hope to put more time into development work in the future.

Earlier this week we had a private reading and discussion of BLEACH, a dark comedy by playwright James Beck. The readers included some of the top acting talent in Atlanta: Robin Bloodworth, Kathleen Wattis, Bart Hansard, Jill Hames and Christie Vozniak. I always feel that the best way to help a playwright is to let them hear their script read by a talented group of well-cast actors. Playwright Beck says: “In organizing a reading of my play BLEACH, Peter pulled together a terrific group of actors who gave a great reading. Then Peter led the group in a constructive feedback session that allowed me as the playwright to experience my play, to question it and to gather new creative energy to apply in crafting the work. Peter did a great job of understanding that the playwright has to solve the riddle of the play but offered, through open discussion, and some really great reflection about the piece."

A few weeks back we had another private reading, this time of a play that we’ve had a longer history with. Playwright Glen Slattery has been working with us for several years on a dark comic fantasia about some of the members of Hitler’s inner circle, in a script that has gone through a number of titles (“The Foreign Minister,” “Hitler’s Parrot,” “The Last-Love Nazi” and “Von Who?”). This was the third time we’ve had a reading/discussion of the play, which has really been coming along. This time around our excellent readers were Bill Murphey, Michael Strauss, Yolanda Asher, Robin Bloodworth, Jill Hames, Theo Harness and James Baskin.

Glen says that: "Essential Theatre provided a setting for several readings of the play that were crucial to its development. Gifted actors brought the roles to life, while feedback from Artistic Director Peter Hardy was invaluable in sharpening the dramatic focus. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to work with such a fine organization."

Coming up next fall, Glen’s play will receive the benefits of a week-long Ethel Woolson Lab development workshop provided by our friends at Working Title, Atlanta’s foremost playwrights’ organization. We look forward to seeing its next incarnation.

Essential Theatre Seeks Festival Ushers

2010-05-02T10:30:00.002-04:00

If you are interested in being an usher for our festival, we are seeking two ushers for each performance. Please visit our online Festival Usher Calendar to determine performance dates and availability. Click HERE to volunteer.

For Playwrights, a Reminder

2010-04-05T15:18:00.001-04:00

The submission deadline is coming up for the 2011 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award competition. Unproduced plays by Georgia playwrights are 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 $600, and the play will be given a full production as part of the 2011 Essential Theatre Play Festival.

The script submission deadline is April 23, 2010.

Submissions for the 2011 festival can be e-mailed to pmhardy@aol.com in pdf or MSWord format or sent by regular mail to the address below. If you submit it to us in some format that we can’t open, we will let you know and you can send it to us by regular mail.

Essential Theatre
1414 Foxhall Lane #10
Atlanta, GA 30316

There is no submission fee.

Please make sure that your contact information is on the front page of the script, and that your script pages are numbered!

Also, please, do yourself a favor and proof-read your script before sending it in. Using spell-check isn’t enough. Learn the difference between “there” and “their” and “they’re.”

The 2010 Essential Theatre Play Festival will be running from July 8 – August 8 at Actor’s Express, featuring the Southeastern Premiere of Rita Dove’s THE DARKER FACE OF THE EARTH, the Georgia Premiere (and second-ever production) of Peter Hardy’s SALLY AND GLEN AT THE PALACE, and the World Premiere of Gabriel Dean’s QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT, Winner of the 2010 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award competition.

For more information, please visit www.EssentialTheatre.com.

Thank You IHG Hotel Indigo

2010-04-01T13:06:00.002-04:00

Essential Theatre is grateful to support from the International Hotel Group and Atlanta Hotel Indigo in their support for the 2010 Essential Theatre Play Festival. Ms. Rita Dove, "Darker Face of the Earth" playwright, and Pulitzer prize winning US Poet Laura will attend our opening festival.

A big thank you to the International Hotel Group for their support. Please visit their website to learn more.

Essential Theatre Preview Celebration: GA Wines & GA Playwrights

2010-03-27T10:57:00.007-04:00

Help celebrate Georgia playwrights, Georgia wines and Georgia theatre on June 27th at 5:30 pm at the Essential Theatre Festival Preview Celebration at the Atlanta Four Seasons Hotel. Stay tuned for more information. We would gratefully appreciate your donation of an item or service for the silent auction fundraiser. Send a message or read the attached sponsorship/donation information.

Advice to Playwrights Starting Out

2010-02-23T09:43:00.001-05:00

Some of this advice was given to me over the years by smart people, but I don’t really remember who said what, so you should just do it. It’s good advice, most of it. There are other things to do too, probably. Also, this is advice for starting out. You might do different things after you playwright a while. Remember that everyone has their own path. These might not all be helpful for you. So find what works for you. Good luck! ~ Adam Szymkowicz

Essential Theatre Seeks Those with a Passion for Theatre

2010-02-21T10:44:00.002-05:00

If you have a passion for theatre and want to help support our mission, please consider becoming a board member. MORE INFORMATION

What Makes a #NewPlay "New"?

2010-02-21T10:37:00.003-05:00

An interesting discussion on what makes a play new.

Rita Dove waxes poetic with Creative Loafings' Curt Holman

2010-01-19T08:23:00.001-05:00

Many of your poems involve historical events and figures, like the “Not Welcome Here” poems in your American Smooth volume. Do you write historical poems any differently than the others?
I do research, but I don’t think I approach those poems differently than I do others. The research is driven by curiosity more than anything else. When it’s done, while writing the poem I try to forget the research, although I have to make sure I get my facts straight. When I wrote the play Darker Face of the Earth, I had to do the research first, but writing, it’s just these characters and assigning their personalities.

Essential Theatre is producing that play this summer. Is it true the story is Oedipus on a slave plantation?
That’s it, in a pretty small nut. When I began working on the play, I was trying to understand what it would be like to not know who your mother and father were on a plantation. Around that time I was reading Oedipus and thinking, “How could Oedipus not figure this out?” and then I realized it was much the same thing, and I could transplant that myth. It allowed me to really enliven and embody the story within the scene and scenario of slavery. And it helped me understand Oedipus, and realize that this original text is not dead and buried; it still has to do with real life.

READ THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW

2010 Festival Auditions

2010-01-18T06:46:00.000-05:00

The Essential Theatre will hold General Auditions for the 2010 Essential Theatre Play Festival, three full-length plays to run in repertory (with separate casts) from July 8 – August 8, performing in the Actor’s Express space. (Performance schedules for the individual plays to be announced.) Non-union, most performers will be paid a stipend. General Auditions will be held on February 20 and 21 (location and time to be determined). Call 404-212-0815 or e-mail pmhardy@aol.com to schedule an audition appointment. Website www.EssentialTheatre.com. For audition, bring headshot and prepare two contrasting monologues (comic, dramatic, contemporary, classical – whatever) not totaling more than 4 minutes in length. If you sing, bring in about 30 seconds of something to sing without accompaniment.

The plays: THE DARKER FACE OF THE EARTH by Rita Dove, directed by Betty Hart. The classical story of Oedipus, from Greek Tragedy, re-imagined on a slave plantation in the American south. Large cast. Many African-American performers needed, both male and female, with possible ages ranging from 12 to 72. One Caucasian female, age around 40, and two Caucasian males, age range 30-50.

SALLY AND GLEN AT THE PALACE by Peter Hardy, directed by Ellen McQueen. Bittersweet comic drama about the friendship between two colleges students working in the lobby of a 1973 movie theatre. One male, one female, both early twenties.

QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT by Gabriel Dean, directed by Peter Hardy. Twisted and poetic family comedy set in rural Georgia, about a young man who discovers that his parents have become addicted to crystal meth. One male in the 50-60 range, one male around 30, one male in the 20-30 range, one male in the 30-50 age range. One female in the 50-60 range, one female around 30.