Essential Theatre Announces 2010 Play Festival Lineup

Essential Theatre Festival has announced its play lineup for the 12th Anniversary Celebration held from July to August 2010 at Actors Express.

2010 Festival Lineup

Qualities of Starlight
by Gabriel Dean, directed by Peter Hardy
The World Premiere of a twisted family comedy about a successful young astronomer who brings his wife home to the north Georgia mountains and the simple country household in which he grew up. And where his parents are now addicted to crystal meth. Winner of the 2010 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award.

Sally and Glen at the Palace
by Peter Hardy
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.

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.

About Essential Theatre
Over the past twelve years, the Essential Theatre has become a leading voice in the support and development of new plays by Georgia writers. Our annual Essential Theatre Playwriting Award is the only competition of its kind, exclusively dedicated to the work of playwrights from the Peach State. Along with a cash prize, the winner gets to see his or her play given a World Premiere production in the Essential Theatre Festival, alongwith Regional Premieres by such nationally acclaimed authors as Sam Shepard, Christopher Durang, Paula Vogel and Lanford Wilson .

For more information, visit http://www.essentialtheatre.com/index.htm