Peter Hardy

2022 Essential Theatre Play Festival Continues With Readings Of New Plays

From July 29 to August 28, Essential Theatre presents its 23rd Festival with the world premieres of two plays and four staged readings, all by Georgia playwrights. The two full productions, The Outrage Machine and A Complicated Hope, opened the first two weeks of the festival, and next in the lineup is the Bare Essentials Play Reading series, produced with support from Georgia Humanities.

Essential Theatre to Present 23rd Summer Play Festival Featuring Two World Premieres & More

From July 29 to August 28, Essential Theatre is presenting its 23rd Festival with the world premieres of two plays and four staged readings, all by Georgia playwrights. The Outrage Machine, written by Daniel Carter Brown and directed by Peter Hardy, opens Friday, July 28, 2022 at 8pm at the West End Performing Arts Center.

The 2021 Essential Festival Opens With Erin Considine's RAISING THE DEAD

Essential Theatre is back live this fall with the 2021 Essential Play Festival, featuring the world premiere productions of two award winning plays by Georgia playwrights. Opening the Festival this year is Erin K. Considine's Raising the Dead, directed by Peter Hardy and Ellen McQueen.

2021 Essential Theatre Play Festival Returns This Fall

Essential Theatre is back live this fall, bringing their 2021 Playwriting Award winning plays, Calming the Man by Anthony Lamarr White and Raising the Dead by Erin Considine, to the stage along with a two night only encore performance of Shelby Hofer's High Risk, Baby!

The 2020 Essential Play Festival was cancelled due to COVID - making 2020 the first year since the Festival began in 1999 that there hasn’t been a festival - and the company moved to online play readings and launched community playwriting classes to fill the programming gap.

Essential Theatre Announces The Winners Of The 2020 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award

Essential Theatre is proud to announce the winners of the 2020 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award: The Outrage Machine by Daniel Carter Brown and The Wishing Place by Beverly Trader Austin. The Outrage Machine and The Wishing Place will each receive a full production in the 2020 Essential Theatre Festival this summer as well as a cash prize. Now in its twentieth year, the Essential Theatre Playwriting Competition is the only competition of its kind. The 2020 Award is sponsored in part by Corbin Real Estate Team.

Photo Flash: First Look at CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF At GET

Georgia Ensemble Theatre (GET), the professional North Fulton theatre company, will open its 27th season this September with a southern classic from Tennessee Williams: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The production will be directed by GET Associate Artistic Director James Donadio and run September 12th through 28th, 2019, at the company's home in the Roswell Cultural Arts Center. The Robert W. Hagan Family Foundation is graciously sponsoring this show.

GET Opens Season 27 With Southern Classic CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

Georgia Ensemble Theatre (GET), the professional North Fulton theatre company, will open its 27th season this September with a southern classic from Tennessee Williams: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The production will be directed by GET Associate Artistic Director James Donadio and run September 12th through 28th, 2019, at the company's home in the Roswell Cultural Arts Center. The Robert W. Hagan Family Foundation is graciously sponsoring this show.

Essential Theatre Presents 21st Annual Play Festival

Essential Theatre is presenting its 21st Festival with the world premieres of three plays and four staged reading all by Georgia playwrights. "Slaying Holofernes", by Emily McClain, directed by Peter Hardy, opens Friday, July 26, 2019 at 8pm at the West End Performing Arts Center. "Baby Shower for the Antichrist", by Ben Thorpe, directed by Shannon Eubanks, opens Friday, August 2, 2019 at 8pm at the same venue.

Essential Theatre Presents Three World Premiere Plays

Essential Theatre is presenting its 20th Festivals with the world premieres of three plays and three staged readings, all by Georgia playwrights. BUILT TO FLOAT, by Rachel Graf Evans, directed by Peter Hardy, opens Friday, July 27, 2018 at 8pm at the West End Performing Arts Center. WOKE, by Avery Sharpe, directed by Ellen McQueen, opens Friday, August 3, 2018 at 8pm at the same venue. Both plays reveal uncomfortable truths and conflicts which often lie dormant in everyday superficial interactions.  

An Officer and a Gentleman, directed by Simon Philips and co-written by Douglas Day Stewart and composer and lyricist team Ken Hirsch and Robin Lerner, made its world premiere performance on May 18 at the Lyric Theater in Sydney, Australia. Go inside opening night of the new musical in the videos below!

An Officer and a Gentleman, directed by Simon Philips and co-written by Douglas Day Stewart and composer and lyricist team Ken Hirsch and Robin Lerner, made its world premiere performance on May 18 at the Lyric Theater in Sydney, Australia. Check out highlights from the musical below!