When he founded Essential Theatre in 1987 and decided to produce the company’s first playwriting festival in 1999, artistic director Peter Hardy was seeking an angle to set the event apart. His decision to include a new work specifically by a Georgia playwright — Karen Wurl’s “Only Children” — was so well-received that the company continued that policy. By 2012, Essential decided to focus only on homegrown talent.
Now the city’s longest-running theater company with a mission to work solely with state artists, the organization has staged 40 world premieres — with two more on tap as part of its upcoming silver anniversary 2024 Essential Theatre Play Festival at 7 Stages. This year’s winner of the annual playwriting award (with a cash prize and a staging) is “The Rock & the Hard Place,” written by Emily McClain. It’s a legal drama about a young woman whose father has been on death row most of her life and the evidence she finds that she believes could save his life.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Essential Theatre
Credit: Photo courtesy of Essential Theatre
Directed by Kyle Brumley, the drama is loosely based on a few cases from the Georgia Innocence Project. McClain’s play began in 2018 as a single scene as part of a theater event. Eventually, she decided to flesh it out, especially knowing so many arguments exist against the death penalty.
“In Georgia we grapple with the death penalty as an institution and how it is implemented and [whether it] should it exist,” she says. “It is consistently something we come back to as a society thinking about if it’s something we need to be doing. Is it the responsibility of the state to decide life or death situations? I am passionate about the work Georgia Innocence Program does working with wrongfully incarcerated people and trying to get them justice. The justice system is often a flawed, imperfect system.”
This is McClain’s second time receiving the Essential Playwriting Award. In 2019, she was the co-winner of the award for her play “Slaying Holofernes.”
The 2024 festival’s second new production is by Hardy himself. “The Other Part of the Picture” is a comedy-drama — directed by his longtime collaborator Ellen McQueen — in which students discover decades-old letters in the houses in which they’re living. The production is staged so that the audience sees a set of neighbors and both their apartments onstage — and gets to know more about them than they know about each other.
“It’s a play about friendships and storytelling but also a play about how we get to know other people,” Hardy says.
After a staged reading as part of the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival and a pair of playwriting prizes, Hardy is ready for “The Other Part of the Picture’s” bow. He started writing the play in 2011 and has worked on it on and off. The success of his “Sally and Glen at the Palace” (written in 1999 and produced by Essential in 2010) inspired him to tackle another play.
Several other events make up this year’s festival, including a play reading series, a 10-minute play boot camp showcase and a reading of “African Roscius” by Hush Harbor Lab, which develops new work for Black Atlanta artists.
While its mission has remained steadfast, one recent change for the company has been its venue. Essential produced early work at different locales including 7 Stages and Actor’s Express before settling at the West End Performing Arts Center for nearly a decade. Hardy had to find a new home last year, however, when the City of Atlanta took over the center from Fulton County and hasn’t fully decided how to utilize it yet. Yet the return to Little 5 Points has gone smoothly. “Going back to 7 Stages has been a terrific experience, and audiences seem genuinely happy to be there,” says Hardy. “Attendance went up last year because we were there.”
Credit: Photo courtesy of Essential Theatre
Credit: Photo courtesy of Essential Theatre
Over the last few decades, Essential has worked with several notable Georgia playwrights, including Decatur-born Lauren Gunderson. Essential produced her first play “Parts They Call Deep” when she was 17, and Gunderson later attended New York University and has become a prolific playwright.
“For several recent years she was the most produced living American playwright,” says Hardy. “She has talked about how helpful Essential Theatre was and gave her confidence to continue on that path.”
Other prominent Essential alumni include Topher Payne, John Mabey, Gabriel Jason Dean, Avery Sharpe and Erin Considine.
McClain credits working with the company for giving her career a boost. She feels Essential has carved out an undeniable niche in Atlanta’s top-heavy theater scene.
“I am a huge believer in the idea of investing in the artists that live in our part of our ecosystem, and Essential is a vital part of that,” she says. “There are lots of opportunities for new plays to have readings, and a lot of theaters help with development. But in terms of full stage productions, Essential is one of the few that follow through on that full commitment and give it a world premiere and financial and artistic support.”
Hardy has been able to hold Essential Theatre together for 25 years, despite the fact that most of his team have full-time jobs elsewhere. It also helps that the festival is an annual event without an office open five days a week.
One element of the company that keeps him proud is the open access Essential provides. Anybody with a Georgia address can submit plays for free. No connections are needed.
“I think some other theaters are looking for people that they know and have a relationship with,” Hardy says. “I can understand why, but as a playwright myself I have always wanted Essential Theatre to present the kind of support and opportunity that I as a writer would like to have access to. We don’t require restrictions to subject matters or themes. What I have always wanted to do is encourage writers to write — about whatever they want to.”
THEATER PREVIEW
2024 Essential Theatre Play Festival
Aug. 9–Sept. 1. Tickets for “The Other Part of the Picture” (Aug. 9-30, with a preview Aug. 8) and “The Rock & the Hard Place” (Aug. 16-Sept. 1, with a preview on Aug. 15) range $15-$28; tickets for other festival events vary. 7 Stages Black Box Theatre, 1105 Euclid Ave. NE, Atlanta. essentialtheatre.com
