25th Essential Festival Opens With World Premiere Written by Founder

On August 9, the 2024 Essential Theatre Silver Anniversary Play Festival will kick off at 7Stages in Little Five Points with a very special World Premiere: Peter Hardy's The Other Part of the Picture, directed by Ellen McQueen. 

"I feel especially blessed to be directing a Peter Hardy play for the Essential Theatre Festival’s Silver Anniversary Season," shares McQueen. McQueen and Hardy's artistic collaboration has extended over decades in various combinations and forms, much of it through Essential. "This is the fourth of Hardy’s plays that I have directed," she says, "and each time is a joy."

The Other Part of the Picture has already won several playwriting prizes nationally and internationally, including the Best Script Awards – London and the New York Script Awards, as well as being chosen for the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival where it received a staged reading in 2022, but this will be the play's world premiere production.

The Other Part of the Picture is a comic drama telling the story of two grad students who find a mysterious batch of old letters in the house where they live, and the group of friends who gather around them to try to uncover the secret of the letters’ origin. 

"But that’s only the plot," says Hardy. "What it’s really about is the way that friendships grow and the central importance of storytelling in how we come to know other people and understand the world."

"When Essential Theatre produced my play Sally and Glen at the Palace in 2010," Hardy recalls, "the response from audiences (and critics and everybody) was so positive that it reignited my enthusiasm for being a playwright -- something which had, for a while, been taking a back seat to my work with Essential to create production opportunities for other Georgia writers."

Because of that experience, Hardy began to work on the play that would become The Other Part of the Picture, which he completed a few years ago. "I’m excited to see it finally given a full production, directed by my dear friend and colleague Ellen McQueen, as part of the 25th Anniversary Season of the Essential Theatre Play Festival," he says, adding, "I’m happy and proud of everything that we’ve accomplished with Essential over the past quarter century!"

Performance Schedule:

Thursday August 8 (8pm) Preview performance

Friday August 9 (8pm) Opening Night

Saturday August 10 (8pm)

Saturday August 17 (8pm)

Sunday August 18 (2pm)

Friday August 23 (8pm)

Sunday August 25 (7pm)

Monday August 26 (8pm) Industry Night

Friday August 30 (8pm)

Cast:

Matt: Caleb Wilkinson

Maddie: Ash Anderson

Cynthia, New Female Tenant: Iniki Roberts

Roger, Various Guys: Brock Kercher

Taylor, Various Guys: Tommy Sullivan-Lovett

Glenda: Rebecca Van Kirk

Liz: Ellie Styron

Voice of Unknown Woman: Carolyn Cook

Voice of Radio D.J.: Matt Cook

Artistic Team:

Playwright: Peter Hardy

Director: Ellen McQueen

Stage Manager: Amanda Taylor Brooks

Intimacy Director: Kristin Storla

Scenic Designer: Adam Pagdon

Lighting Designer: Harley Gould

Sound Designer: Joshuia Campbell

Composer: George Kotler-Wallace

Costume Designer: Savannah Cobb

Props Designer: Victoria Nation

The Essential Theatre Play Festival runs August 9-September 1 at 7 Stages in Little Five Points: four packed weeks of new work by Georgia playwrights, including two world premiere productions, readings, showcases, and presentations of Georgia playwrights’ work.

Tickets are on sale now! Visit EssentialTheatre.Tix.com or call 404-212-0815.

Performance schedule and other details are available at www.EssentialTheatre.com.

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